


9.9 Out of 10, Highly Recommend

by downn_in_flames



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV) References, Community: HPFT, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, also this doesn't end the way how to lose a guy in 10 days does, and this fic has ended up unabashedly feminist sooooo, basically lily and james are both extraordinarily competitive, because that ending is stupid, everyone else at the precinct lives for office gossip, lots of fun shit goes down, try to guess what b99 characters they all match up to
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 17:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downn_in_flames/pseuds/downn_in_flames
Summary: 2 bets. 10 days. Endless shenanigans.{A Brooklyn 99 meets How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Jily fic}





	1. Boys Like You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you hold my hand, do you want to hold my heart?  
> When you say you want me, is it all of me or just one part?  
> -Anna Clendening

* * *

_THE BET_

* * *

 

At 10 pm on a Tuesday night, James Potter and Lily Evans are both rather impressively drunk.

They don't know this particular fact about one another though, because they're at bars across town from one another, with totally different groups of coworkers.

Although if you asked Lily, she really wouldn't be surprised to learn that James was drinking on a Tuesday - that's not too far out of character for him, anyways. James, on the other hand, would be absolutely gobsmacked to learn that cookie-cutter rule-follower Lily Evans was getting smashed on a weekday, when they've got work tomorrow.

She has good reason for it though - she's celebrating. She's only found out earlier today that she's getting promoted to sergeant in a new department, which is just one step closer to her dream of becoming captain of a whole precinct and then commissioner of the entire NYPD.

In other words, her entire 25-year plan is right on track.

"The precinct is going to be weird without you," Mary says, taking a sip of her beer.

From anyone else, that would be a mild compliment at best, but from Mary, that's practically the equivalent of an overly emotional hug, sobbing and all.

Mary may be one of Lily's closest friends, but she's always been an impressively impassive and private person, even with people she's known for years.

"She's right," Marlene adds. "Who's going to get onto Black every time he decides to do something ridiculous like fill the vending machines with rotting vegetables?"

"And then stop Lupin from punching him, because we all know how he feels about the office vending machine," Mary quips.

It's an odd thing to be passionate about, but Remus has an impressive level of dedication to the office vending machine, which is in all honestly probably older than all of them and can only be filled with candy bars because anything larger gets stuck.

Lily laughs - it's louder than her normal laugh, a sure sign that she's surpassed Three-Drink Lily. "You've got Kingsley and Dumbledore for that."

Marlene rolls her eyes. "Please. Don't get me wrong, they're great at their jobs, but when have they  _ever_ been able to rein in Lupin and Black?"

"When have  _I_ ever been able to rein in Lupin and Black?" Lily replies, before frowning at her now-empty fourth drink.

"You're able to rein in  _Potter_ , and  _Potter_ is able to rein in Lupin and Black."

Lily scoffs at that, because, in her opinion, she doesn't have much control over Potter either. And if she were more sober, she'd elegantly manoeuver right around that particular topic of conversation, because it's an viewpoint she's always differed with her co-workers on.

But she's just crossed the threshold into Four-Drink Lily, and Four-Drink Lily has conversational grace equivalent to Peter doing ballet. That is to say, none whatsoever.

"I've got no more power over Potter than either of you."

Marlene giggles at that. "You can tell yourself that all you like, but you  _know_ he has a thing for you."

"Trust me," Mary adds. "I have to watch him make heart eyes at you all day long. He definitely likes you."

Mary's desk does face James, so that claim is actually pretty plausible.

Lily still doesn't buy it though. "Oh please, Potter doesn't like  _me_. He likes the idea of me."

"Meaning?" Marlene prods.

"He's created some idealised version of me in his head," she says. "I'm the hot coworker who sits at the desk next to him - it's practically a fantasy situation. And as such, he's built me up in his head as this dream girl of his - and  _that's_ the girl he has a crush on. Not me."

Mary rolls her eyes. "Fuck, I'm going to need another drink if you're going to psychoanalyze people this hard tonight."

"Can you get all of us another round while you're at it?" Marlene asks. "It's your turn to buy anyways."

"One beer, one whiskey Diet Coke, and one cosmo, coming right up."

"You're a doll, Mary," Marlene replies, knowing full well that the term of endearment will annoy her coworker.

"Fuck off, McKinnon," Mary retorts, before getting up and heading over to the bar.

Marlene almost immediately turns back to Lily. "Why are you so convinced he doesn't actually like you? What proof do you have of that?"

"Potter's the idealistic type, we all know that," Lily replies reasonably. "He decided I'm his dream girl when I got assigned the desk next to him, and hasn't paid attention to any evidence to the contrary ever since."

The other girl eyes her skeptically. "And that evidence is?"

"We're so  _different_." Lily has no idea how that's not abundantly obvious to everyone.

Lily's the type of person who has a 25-year life plan. James is the type of person who can't think more than three days in advance - it's why most of the precinct has taken to sending him calendar invites for every little thing. Lily color codes her sock drawer, and James has had the same empty Coke can sitting on his desk for the past four months and eight days.

She's kept count of it. It's been on her nerves for four months and seven days.

"They say opposites attract, you know," Marlene replies, smirking. "But really, I don't think you and Potter are actually that different. Yeah, you've got different habits and whatnot, but at the same time, you're both fuelled by the same things. I know you say he's blinded by a version of you that he's created in his head, but you're blinded by an imaginary version of him too, babe."

"Am not," Lily answers stubbornly.

"Honestly, if you just gave him a chance, I think you'd find that you two are good for each other."

Mary returns with their drinks at that moment, which gives Lily a little bit of time to think through Marlene's comments.

Lily would be lying to herself if she said she didn't find James good-looking. It's kind of hard  _not_ to find the boy attractive, what with the dark, messy hair, the sharp jawline regularly dotted with stubble, and the cute little dimple on his right cheek that pops out when he smiles. Not to mention that he's over 6 foot and decently built - a bit on the skinnier side, but Lily's always kind of preferred that to the gym bro archetype - all of which puts him firmly in the realm of exactly her type.

He's also actually pretty funny, and some of his overly dramatic antics serve to lighten the mood on particularly stressful days at the precinct. And he was the first person to congratulate her today when the news broke that she was getting promoted.

So yeah, she's definitely attracted to him, at least a little bit. But she'll never admit to that - it'd practically be social suicide amongst her co-workers - and they'd inevitably blow it way out of proportion. Thinking a guy is cute and funny doesn't equate wanting to spend the rest of your life with them, no matter what Marlene may believe to the contrary.

"I'm telling you, I doubt he's actually into me like that," Lily finally says, taking the first sip of her fifth drink. "He wants one part of me, and that's it. The rest is something he's created in his own mind. He'd take me for a ride, realise he doesn't actually like the real version of me, and drop me."

"And I say you're wrong," Marlene replies, taking her cosmo off of Mary's hands.

"I'm actually with Marlene on this one," Mary says. "He's into you, full stop."

Lily hates being outnumbered. And she also hates being told that she's wrong, which is probably what fuels what she says next.

"I guarantee you that, if Potter knew what I'm like in a relationship - what he'd be signing himself up for in going out with me - he'd realise he's not actually into me," she tells them both. "Fuck, I'd even put money on it."

"And I'd put money on it that he's half in love with you, and 'knowing what you're like in a relationship' wouldn't change that one fucking bit," Mary replies.

"You're wrong," Lily replies, looking Mary dead in the eye.

It's a dangerous decision, getting into a staring contest with Mary, who could probably kill a man with a glare alone, but Five-Drink Lily isn't afraid of anything. Even if she is pretty sure Mary keeps at least one knife in her combat boots at all times.

"What's the wager?" Marlene says, breaking Lily's concentration.

"What do you mean, 'what's the wager'?" Lily asks.

"Well, you two both just made a bet, and I'm just curious what's actually on the table here."

"That wasn't an actual bet!" Lily defends immediately.

Mary scoffs. "Yeah, because you know you'll lose."

Lily whips around to look at Mary again. "I do not! But a real bet has to have a comprehensive set of rules associated with it, not just vague statements."

"Let's make that 'comprehensive set of rules' then," Mary replies, and the use of air quotes has Lily feeling like her friend is most definitely mocking her. "You leave the office in ten days - that's a built-in timeline right there. Starting tomorrow, you go after him. You take him out on a couple dates or two - no sex required, unless you just really want to, in which case, go for it I guess. You 'show him your real self' - but you're not allowed to dramatically sabotage anything either. If he's done with you by the time you leave the precinct, you win. If he's still half in love with you at that point like I know he will be, I win."

The speed with which Mary just came up with a fully-thought-out proposal almost shocks Lily, but then again, Mary's only been drinking beer the entire night and has an alcohol tolerance equivalent to her and Marlene combined. So she shouldn't be surprised, really.

"I can't date a coworker," Lily replies.

"Black and Lupin are fucking engaged," Mary retorts. "You absolutely  _can_ date a coworker."

Mary's not wrong, per say. There isn't anything in their HR manual about dating coworkers; it's a rule Lily's instituted for herself moreso than anything formalised by the NYPD. Future commissioners don't get themselves involved in office romances.

"You can suspend your own rules for this," Marlene adds, all but reading Lily's mind. "You're leaving in ten days - there's no consequences to this like there would be if you still had to share a workspace afterwards."

She… does have a point.

"Lily's just making up excuses because she knows I'm right, and she knows she's going to lose," Mary says casually, taking another sip of her beer.

Sober Lily is already competitive as hell, and drunk Lily is that intensified tenfold.

"You're on, McDonald," Lily says, slamming her drink down on the table so aggressively that a little bit sloshes over the side. "Loser has to sit through one of Peter's homemade cheese tasting demonstrations - and eat all of them."

Betting money might've been the original proposal, but the comedic value of forcing Mary to sit through Peter's impassioned explanations of all the possible cheese varieties is worth far more, from Lily's perspective.

"And has to organise Black's Drawer of Horrors," Mary adds, grinning wickedly.

One of the drawers in Sirius' desk has been filled with a whole host of terrifying objects over his tenure at the precinct - ranging from prank toys to food that's probably sat there for years. Even Lily, who gets a thrill out of organising pretty much anything else, doesn't want to get near that thing with a ten-foot pole.

But Lily won't have to. Because she's going to win. "You have yourself a deal," she says, holding out a hand for Mary to shake.

Mary reaches out and shakes it, gripping just a tiny bit harder than necessary. Lily resists the urge to cringe at the force of it - that's exactly the display of weakness Mary wants to see.

Marlene looks up from the message she's been typing on her phone and claps her hands delightedly. "Oh, this is absolutely the kind of office excitement we've been needing!"

Lily arches an eyebrow at her. "We work at a police precinct. You really think that's  _not_  exciting?"

Marlene shrugs. "Taking down crime rings and whatnot is cool and all, but the juicy gossip is what I'm really here for."

Lily shouldn't even be surprised by that, really. Honestly, Marlene could probably have a pretty decent career in reality TV if she ever decided to leave the precinct.

"There's not going to be any juicy gossip," Lily says. "James is going to go out with me twice, realise I'm not what he signed up for, and that'll be the end of that. No juicy gossip involved."

"Whatever you say, Lil," Marlene laughs.

That's really all there is to it, Lily tells herself. She's going to win this bet, start her new job, and forget all about James Potter and his stupidly perfect jawline.

 

* * *

 

On the other side of town, James is on his fourth beer and absolutely thriving.

The four of them - Remus, Sirius, Peter, and him - are on a mission to taste-test every brewery in New York City. They're nowhere close to accomplishing that goal yet, but they've made pretty decent headway and enjoyed acting like overblown beer snobs in the process.

"Ah yes," Sirius comments, holding his drink out in front of him. "The hops in this brew are particularly pronounced."

"There's an earthy aftertaste to this one," Remus adds, swirling his stout as if it's a fancy glass of wine.

"And this one tastes like piss," James replies, completely ruining the fake-classy theme Sirius and Remus had going with their commentary.

"Come on, guys!" Peter says earnestly. "Beer tastings are meant to be a serious affair!"

Sirius isn't swayed at all. "They're meant to get us drunk, Wormtail."

James always wonders what other people must think of them when they hear the group of men calling each other by weird nicknames like Wormtail and Padfoot. In all honesty, James himself isn't quite sure why the names have stuck as long as they have - they were originally inspired by the first major crimes each detective took down when they were all assigned to the newly-formed 73rd precinct, and they've lingered ever since.

Peter took down an organized crime ring from the inside - he was the rat, as the ringleader so eloquently called him in court. Hence, Wormtail.

"You sound like Fenwick," James adds, before draining his glass.

"Nah," Remus replies. "None of us are drinking pilsners. Ergo, couldn't possible be Fenwick."

They all laugh at that - Benjy Fenwick's obsession with pilsners has definitely become a running joke throughout the office, despite the fact that the guy doesn't even work there.

"You're also nowhere near as much of a dick as Fenwick was," James tacks on.

Sirius looks up from his phone. "Fenwick wasn't  _actually_ that much of a dick. You just didn't like him because he was fucking the love of your life."

James crinkles his brows in disgust. "Fenwick is definitely not the love of my life."

Admittedly, yeah, Fenwick isn't  _ugly_ \- he actually kind of resembles a guy James had gone on a couple dates with in college - but he has the all the personality of a loaf of white bread.

Ergo, very much not James' type.

"You massively misinterpreted the usage of the word 'fucking' in that sentence," Sirius corrects. "The love of your life is the person he was fucking."

"Evans isn't the love of my life either," James replies defensively.

Well, not yet, at least. James could definitely see her  _becoming_ the love of his life though. He almost spilt his coffee all over himself the very first day she showed up at the precinct (he managed to contain the spill to one sleeve, in the end) because  _fuck_ , the detective he was supposed to be sharing a desk with shouldn't have been that beautiful.

And then she opened her mouth and James started falling for her even more.

So yeah, at this point, he's pretty hopelessly smitten.

And because he's utter shit at hiding his feelings, all of his friends know it, most of the precinct knows it, and hell, Lily probably knows it too. Trying to argue to the contrary is a bit of a hopeless endeavour.

Remus looks at him skeptically. "Maybe not love of your life, but pretty damn close."

James shrugs, picking up another one of the IPAs they've got on the table. "Doesn't matter much though - she's leaving the precinct in 10 days and I won't have much reason to see her after that."

When he first heard the news of her promotion, he'd secretly been kind of sad that he wouldn't have an excuse to see Lily everyday anymore. But he also knows how important getting a promotion and moving up in the police department is to Lily, so he'd given her a bright smile and congratulated her anyways.

" _Or,_ you could actually make a move sometime in those 10 days so that she actually wants to hang around with your dumb ass even after she leaves."

James glares at Sirius.

"But you don't have the guts for that, do you?" his best friend challenges.

"Pads..." Remus warns.

Padfoot, like the dog. Inspired by the major drug operation Sirius had sniffed out.

Sirius waves off his fiancé. "Prongs, you're my brother, so I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you're absolutely shit with people you've got a crush on, and Evans is no exception. You just make doe eyes at her from afar and that's not going to get you anywhere."

He's obviously trying to get a rise out of James - giving him shit for all sorts of things that he knows James can't stand being called out on - and maybe a more sober James would recognise that, and let Sirius have his fun without rising to the bait.

But that's not the state that James is in right now.

"I am  _not_ shit with people I've got a crush on," he argues. "I just happen to respect Evans's boundaries because I don't think it's very professional to openly flirt with a coworker in the workplace."

It's not like the NYPD is known for its sexual harassment policies, so honestly, James probably wouldn't get in any sort of trouble if he  _did_ decide to repeatedly ask her out on dates until she relented, but he'd never want to make her uncomfortable like that.

Hence, his (slightly pathetic) pining from afar.

"I'm not asking you to get a harassment complaint filed against yourself," Sirius replies immediately. "In fact, I rather like Evans, so if you  _do_ manage to do something that warrants a harassment complaint or makes her uncomfortable, I'm formally obligated to kick your ass. But I'm just saying, this is your chance to shoot your shot before she's no longer one desk away from you."

Peter laughs. "Please. Prongs could never get Evans to fall for him in that period of time."

Prongs  _could_ refer to the antlers on a stag - and James  _does_ love rocking a good pair of reindeer antlers from time to time - but the true derivation of that name was from James escaping and diffusing a hostage situation using nothing but an unloaded gun and a fork.

But damn. Hearing that insult from Peter stings - after all, the guy has had an even longer dry spell than James has. Really, he's got no right to go around critiquing James' wooing skills.

"Could too," James replies childishly, only barely resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at his friend.

"Care to make an official bet on that?" Sirius asks, smirking. "I'll take you up on that one - loser has to sit through one of Wormy's cheese demonstrations."

"Oh yes!" Peter claps his hands together delightedly, completely missing the point that this is a form of punishment for losing. "I've been needing more people to practice on!"

"I'm not making a bet on Evans," James replies obstinately. "She's a person, not a prize to be won."

"Technically, you're not betting  _on_ Evans," Remus replies, serving as the voice of logic at the table. "You're betting on your own abilities. If you win, you've managed to actually nail the partner of your dreams; if you lose, no one is any worse off than when you started. This is an entirely non-objectifying situation on all accounts."

When Remus puts it like that, James has to admit that he's got a pretty good point. And there's no possible outcome to this that hurts anyone. Well, other than James himself if he fails, but honestly no more hurt than if he'd never even taken a chance with Lily to begin with.

He just has to… actually manage to charm the woman that's shown absolutely no romantic interest in him up until this point.

 _Should be easy enough_ , he thinks to himself, and almost laughs aloud at his own internal sarcasm.

But he'll also never turn down a bet - especially not when all his friends have been giving him so much shit all night. James Potter is a lot of things, but a coward is most definitely not one of them.

So he turns to Sirius, grinning wickedly. "You're on. But two rules: you three can't interfere at all, and no one tells Evans about it until it's over."

Sirius looks vaguely surprised. "You're actually taking me up on this?"

"Come on, Pads, you know full well that I don't back down from a challenge."

James isn't lying on that one. It's gotten him into a fair share of sticky situations - most frequently with a particularly problematic cop in the Major Crimes Unit, who has basically made it his life's goal to antagonise their whole precinct (but mostly James) on a regular basis.

"Plus," James muses. "You're right. I've got ten days until I'll never see her again - if there's ever a time to take a risk, it's now."

"You  _do_ realise she's still going to be friends with all of us, and she's only moving - "

"Moony, hush," Sirius waves a hand in front of Remus' face, stopping him from finishing that sentence.

The way Remus earned  _that_ nickname - and the way he stopped a major car chase in progress - is still a story that none of the boys can get through without laughing.

"So we've got ourselves a bet, Prongs?" he continues, extending a hand out to James. "If Lily falls in love with you by the time she leaves the precinct, you win; if she wants nothing to do with you, I win."

It feels like there's a significant gap between 'falling in love with him' and 'wanting nothing to do with him,' but James doesn't give that technicality too much thought. This is his dignity (and a cheese tasting with Peter) on the line.

So he takes Sirius' hand, giving it a firm shake. "Let's do this."

Ten days from now, he'll have made Lily fall for him, proving his romantic competence once and for all. His friends will inevitable find something else to give him shit for, but James will thoroughly enjoy his bragging rights.

Or alternatively, he'll be sampling Peter's homemade gouda, but James isn't letting himself entertain that outcome right now.


	2. Sucker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm a sucker for all the subliminal things no one knows about you  
> And you're making the typical me break my typical rules  
> -Jonas Brothers

* * *

 DAY ONE

* * *

 

The 73rd Precinct of the NYPD always smells like a mixture of burnt coffee, musty files, and the 'ocean breeze' air freshener that sprays every 20 minutes like clockwork.

That last one is solely Lily's contribution - damn, someone's going to have to take responsibility for refilling that thing once she's gone. Unless she takes the whole contraption with her, in which case the place will probably start smelling like Peter's feet again.

But on top of that strange concoction of fragrances, the precinct also smells like opportunity.

At least, that's the cheesy line James is telling himself, in the hopes of being largely optimistic about this whole thing. He's still got a slight headache from all his drinking the night before, but he's also got a really solid plan of action.

It's a pretty foolproof plan, if he says so himself. For all that his friends like to rib him about going catatonic around people he's got a crush on, he's  _also_ done pretty damn well at getting his fair share of dates over the years.

It's just a matter of applying those tactics to someone he already fancies something awful.

He just needs to channel his inner Aries, or whatever it is that his zodiac sign is. Marlene's always going off about astrology, and truthfully, James is usually only halfway paying attention, but he's pretty sure he's supposed to be super courageous and powerful or something like that.

He's going to need that today. He's not planning on asking Lily out just yet - he needs to take this slow if he actually wants a decent shot at her saying yes - but he's most definitely going to attempt to flirt with her.

In real life this time, instead of just daydreaming about it like he's so apt to do during staff meetings.

I mean, really, what else is he meant to do when Dumbledore is going on about 'the valiant battle of good versus evil in the streets of New York' other than dream up elaborate situations involving Lily and increasingly ridiculous pick-up lines? Pay attention?

In a burst of nervous energy, he goes about cleaning up his desk a little. It's a complete disaster, really - although James is more apt to call it organized chaos, because he knows exactly where every file is, thank you very much. He throws away the Coke can that's been sitting there for far too long, and empties his pencil cup of the various candy wrappers that have accumulated there.

Externally, it's not a massive improvement, but it still feels productive to James.

He looks up when Lily walks in. She's holding a large iced coffee, and James immediately knows what that means. It's her hangover drink. He shouldn't really be surprised that she went out last night - she just got a major promotion, after all - but she very rarely drinks enough on weekdays to warrant a hangover coffee the next day.

Her blouse also has one more button open than it normally does; James isn't sure if she's noticed that particular wardrobe malfunction yet, but  _he's_ definitely not going to be the one to point it out to her. He's also  _not_ going to pay attention to the way that that extra open button reveals just the tiniest bit of cleavage.

He looks up at her face instead, and that turns out to be a mistake. Because she smiles at him brightly - and it almost blinds him for the briefest of moments. "Good morning, James," she says.

For someone holding a hangover coffee, she's surprisingly chipper. Especially towards him. It's enough of a shock that the pencil he's been twiddling between his fingers falls to the floor.

"Good morning," he replies, trying to sound casual despite the writing utensil currently clattering on the tile. "You look lovely today, by the way."

There he goes. He did it. He flirted. He's doing great at this.

"Only today?" she replies, raising an eyebrow at him. "Do I not look lovely every day?"

Shit, maybe he's  _not_  actually doing great at this.

"No, no, of course you look lovely every day," he quickly backtracks. "I just meant that - "

Lily laughs - it's a sweet melodic sound to James' ears and it makes him relax a little bit. "I'm only joking - I know what you meant. I just wanted to give you a hard time, is all."

He absolutely wasn't prepared for that one. Lily's never been  _cold_ towards him, but the vibe of her behavior right now feels decidedly different than normal. "Oh."

"How was your night?" Lily asks, walking away from her desk and coming over to lean against his.

James is trying very hard not to pay attention to her open blouse - even though it's practically right in front of his face now - and it's only because of that intentional avoidance that he catches Sirius and Remus walking out of the elevator.

"It was good," he answers. "Me, Sirius, Remus, and Peter tried out another brewery - I take it you went out last night as well?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Remus giving him a thumbs up and Sirius miming a lewd gesture.

A look of surprise crosses Lily's features. "How'd you know that?"

He realises that he's now dug himself into a bit of a hole, and the only escape is admitting just how much he's been watching her over the years. "I - er, you always get a large iced coffee whenever you're hungover."

Lily looks at him oddly - fuck, he's definitely creeped her out. "Huh," she muses, "I guess I do."

James struggles for words for a few moments, trying to figure out how the hell to get himself out of this situation, but Lily speaks again before he has a chance to. "You threw the Coke can away," she observes.

Now it's his turn to be surprised by her perceptiveness.

"I did," he replies, although it comes out more like a question than a statement.

Lily at least looks a little flustered by that. "It's just - it's been there for a while. Four months and nine days, by my count."

James actually laughs at that, and the remaining tension drops out of his shoulders. "Oh my god, of  _course_ you would've kept count of that, Evans."

"It's an awfully long time to keep an empty Coke can around, is all," she defends.

He looks at her endearingly. "You're really something else, you know that?"

Lily ducks her head at that, letting a curtain of auburn hair fall over her face, but it doesn't fully hide the fact that her cheeks are notably flushed.

He just… made her blush with that?

Naturally, it's when he's not even trying to be smooth that he actually succeeds at it.

"As fun as watching you two lovebirds is..." James looks away from Lily to see Marlene standing a few feet away, arms crossed. "Captain Dumbles called a meeting, so I'm going to need you two to keep it in your pants until later."

Fucking hell, he  _really_ needs Marlene not to say things like that. Things like that decidedly do  _not_ go well with the whole 'taking things slow and not weirding her out' plan.

"I can't wait until the day Dumbledore hears that you call him Dumbles behind his back," Lily retorts, flipping her hair over her shoulder and seemingly choosing to ignore Marlene's massively unsubtle comments about the two of them.

"Please," Marlene grins, "The Dumble-D loves me. If anything, he'll decide to adopt it as his official nickname."

"Somehow, I seriously doubt that," James replies, reaching underneath a stack of papers to retrieve his notepad and a random pen with a faded Flourish and Blott's logo on the side.

Their captain is… a bit of an enigma, if he's being honest. He's rather eccentric, but also takes his leadership role seriously. He's also just about as weirdly private as Mary is when it comes to his personal life, so all that James really knows is that his husband's name is Gellert and that he works as a financial planner.

Beyond that, he could secretly be researching dragon's blood on the side or something and the rest of the precinct would be none the wiser.

Despite all of that - and despite James' many jokes about his boss - Dumbledore is a pretty damn good captain, and James has a lot of respect for him.

When they walk into Meeting Room 1, Lily surprises him by sitting in the seat next to him instead of two tables in front of him like usual.

"Is it alright if I sit here?" she says, leaning toward him just a bit. If James didn't know better, he'd definitely think Lily was trying to weaponize that damn open button on her blouse against him somehow.

But even without the extra button, he's more than happy to have her sit next to him. Pete can just figure out somewhere else to sit.

"Yeah, of course."

Sure enough, when Peter walks into the room just a few seconds later, he looks vaguely scandalised when he discovers that his usual spot has been occupied. There's a moment where James thinks Peter might say something, but he apparently thinks better of it, because he walks over to Lily's normal spot, taking the seat next to Mary. James doesn't miss the way he intentionally moves his chair a few extra inches away from Mary - Peter's always been a little terrified by the other detective.

"Good morning, team," Kingsley says as he walks into the room, taking his spot next to the podium at the front of the room.

There's an unsynchronised echo of 'good mornings' in response.

A few moments later, Dumbledore comes into the room. He's always had a strange way of carrying himself - almost as if he's wearing long, flowing royal robes instead of his police captain uniform.

But if James had to pick out the single most notable aspect of Dumbledore's appearance - and the one he almost immediately commented on with a 'hello there, Gandalf' on the first day their new captain was introduced - is the his impressively long, slightly-greying beard.

Seriously. That thing is practically a work of art.

"We have widespread records of a whole range of various illegitimate activity from last night," Dumbledore begins, without any preamble. His speeches always firmly straddle the line between incredibly blunt and entirely too vague, and this one seems to be no exception.

"There were no fewer than seven bodegas all held up around the same time," he adds, giving much needed context to his initial statement.

"Why would anyone want to rob a bodega?" Peter interjects, sounding almost affronted by the news.

James is, truthfully, of the opposite mindset. Bodegas have everything you could ever need - who  _wouldn't_ want to rob one of those?

Well, not him, because he's an upstanding member of society who doesn't steal from anyone, but like, if he had to pick a place…

He refrains from providing that commentary out loud though, because Lily is currently sitting rather close to him and he doesn't want to do anything to disturb that balance.

"The fact that seven robberies happened at once is an indicator that there are deeper, more sinister forces at play," Dumbledore says, ignoring Peter's commentary. "We think that these were meant as some sort of diversion for something else."

"Like what?" Remus asks.

"No one's completely sure. There were also reports of strange activity near the intersection of Liberty and Prospect, but nothing that seemed to warrant police involvement. At least, not when there were seven hold-ups taking place at the same time."

James is paying attention to the meeting - he  _is_ \- but he's also currently contending with the fact that Lily's knee keeps bumping against his. He's not sure if she's mistaken his leg for part of the table or something, but it's throwing his concentration off just a tiny bit. Largely because he's not sure what to make of it, especially if it turns out Lily  _knows_ she's bumping against his leg and not the table.

Were it not for the fact that the four of them had all sworn to secrecy - and having Lily openly flirting with him would actually  _help_ his side of the bet - he'd really think one of his friends meddled in things to get her to act like this. Maybe as some sort of joke or something.

After zoning out for a minute and missing a decent bit of the captain's speech, Dumbledore clearing his throat brings James back into the present moment. "Because of this, we have reason to believe some sort of exchange is meant to take place in that same location sometime before this weekend."

"We're going to set up a rotating schedule of stakeouts," Kingsley adds. This has always been how he and Dumbledore have operated - the captain handles all the big picture information, and Kingsley sorts out the details. "McDonald and Lupin, you two are taking tonight. Potter and Evans, you two are tomorrow. Black and Pettigrew, you're taking Friday."

James can't believe the good luck the universe has given him this week.

Sirius, on the other hand, doesn't appear to feel quite as lucky. "Hey, why can't I have Remus as my stakeout partner?"

"You know precisely why, Black," Dumbledore responds plainly, showing absolutely no sign of emotion whatsoever. He's either internally laughing at the situation or still massively pissed about it, but James can never actually tell which of those he's feeling at any given time.

Nor can anyone in the precinct, really. Their captain is nothing if not confusing as hell.

As for the reason his two friends aren't allowed to stake out together anymore, the story involved a very heated makeout session in a patrol car.

They ended up catching the perp though, but not before the criminal witnessed the hickey on Sirius' neck and Remus' undone belt and started shouting something about road head in a cop car as soon as he'd been brought into the precinct.

James is sure Sirius would like to argue further, maybe throw in a comment about how he and Lily were paired together, and  _surely_ the sergeant is only doing this because  _his_  relationship is a homosexual one - the gay card, his favorite one to pull even though the captain is gay himself - but the rules of the bet preclude him from saying anything about what James is trying to do in the next ten days.

The meeting carries on for a little bit longer, and there's further discussion about the crime ring that Dumbledore thinks this is connected to, but for the most part, it's nothing groundbreaking. They're dismissed eventually, and the only real notes James has managed to take during the entire thing are some terribly done doodles and the word 'Thursday.'

James takes the long way back to his desk, stopping by the kitchens to get a Coke out of the fridge. Remus and Peter are leaving the precinct to go question a witness, and he gives them both a high five on their way out.

When he gets back to his desk, the first thing he does is open up his email - it's filled with a whole host of announcements that he probably  _should_ read at some point today, but for now, he just scrolls through them all to get the angry red 'unread' number to go away. The process is weirdly methodical and soothing, and he can almost entirely block out Sirius' phone barking repeatedly - although honestly, who's sending him that many texts right now?

"I still can't believe you don't sort your emails," a voice says from behind him, and James jumps when he realises Lily is standing by his desk again. The extra button on her blouse is done back up this time.

"Why would I?" he responds. "There's a search bar for a reason."

"And you just keep a perfect mental record of the exact search terms you'll need to find whatever you're looking for?"

James shrugs. "Pretty much."

Lily laughs. "Unbelievable."

He feels strangely like he needs to defend his email system - not everyone can be as organized as she is - but he's saved from trying to develop an argument by Lily changing the subject. "So, I was thinking," she starts, biting her bottom lip like she always does when she's nervous, "maybe you and I could go do something after work today? Just the two of us? Like, as a date?"

Well, his perfectly-crafted days one through three just went straight out the window.

But even though his mind is positively reeling - because where the  _fuck_ did this come from - he manages to sound pretty put-together out loud. "Yeah, that'd be great, Evans. What do you have in mind?"

She grins, emerald eyes sparkling with something between joy and mischief. "You'll see."

"That sounds ominous."

"Maybe it is," she replies. "But yay, I'm looking forward to it."

She immediately turns to make the five-foot trek back to her own desk, but James can't resist asking the question that's been on his mind since this morning. "Where did this come from, Evans? We've both worked here for almost three years, and you ask me out the day after you find out you're moving precincts?"

The smile on her face falters for half a second - James notices that much. "I have a self-imposed rule about not dating coworkers," she tells him. "But I'm leaving in a few days, so I figured it's now or never."

He supposes that logic is fair enough. And Lily  _would_ be the type of person to have a complicated set of personal rules, really.

But damn, if she's only shown no interest in him because they were working together, winning this bet might be a whole lot easier than he'd expected.

 

* * *

 

Knowing that he's got a date after work has the magical effect of making the day go by so much slower than usual. He's honestly bored out of his mind filling out paperwork from a few small cases he'd worked on over the past few weeks - but there's a good chance Kingsley will kick his ass if he doesn't have all those reports done by the end of this week.

And Kingsley could kick James' ass easily; James passed his physical test to join the force and all, but Kingsley works out like three times a day. There's no way in hell James can compete with that.

"I'll text you where to meet me," Lily says, when she sees James start packing up his things. "Wear something comfortable."

This seems like it's about to be a very unconventional first date, whatever it is, because 'comfortable' isn't usually the look James goes for - at least, not on the usual dinner-and-a-movie first date type of thing.

Despite the confusion of it all, James actually really doesn't mind it. He's always been the type of person that  _loves_ surprises, and any surprise Lily comes up with seems like a pretty solid one to him.

He still texts Sirius for advice anyways. As soon as he starts the walk home to his apartment, he pulls out his phone and types out a message to his much more fashionable friend.

_ok lily said to dress comfortable, what the hell should i wear for this_

_you do realise it's a direct conflict of interest for me to answer that, right?_

_i really should just tell you something to wear something absurd so that i win_

_honestly, fuck you_

_no thanks, i've got moony for that_

_that joke again, seriously?_

_DO NOT MAKE A SIRIUS PUN I SWEAR TO GOD_

_since you're so intent on taking things *siriusly*, jeans and one of your t-shirts that doesn't have a hole in it is probably good enough_

_ideally one of the more fitted ones that makes you look like you've actually got biceps instead of just being a goddamn beanpole_

_ugh fuck off_

_but also thx_

_you're very welcome_

Despite the fact that texting Sirius for advice almost always turns into getting endless shit about his questions, Sirius is usually pretty helpful. And he was in this case, and James takes his advice, putting on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from a campaign he volunteered on.

Lily texts him an address, which he immediately plugs into Google Maps. It resolves a place called 'Indoor Extreme Sports.'

Which, quite honestly, sounds like his dream first date. A dream first date with his dream girl isn't too a shabby a way to spend his Wednesday.

When James arrives at the designated location, Lily's already there waiting for him. He'd thought he'd beat her by getting there five minutes earlier than when she'd told him to meet him, but really, he should've known better. Lily is never less than ten minutes early for everything.

She's changed into black shorts and a green top, and her hair is tied up into a ponytail.

"Indoor Extreme Sports?" James asks. "That's an unconventional date choice."

"You don't like it?"

"Exact opposite, actually," James replies. "I'm realising just how much I've missed out on at this point in my life by  _not_ having every first date I've ever been on at an Indoor Extreme Sports."

"Oh," Lily says. "Good." She doesn't sound quite as relieved as her words would imply, and James isn't quite sure what to make of that. "Nice shirt, by the way."

He hadn't even thought about it when he got dressed, really, but he feels like wearing a shirt with their current representative's logo on it is definitely going to earn him points in Lily's book. She's definitely raved about her at work on more than one occasion.

"Thanks," he grins. "It's always a bit of a risk wearing a political shirt on a first date, you know."

"Oh, shut up," she returns his smile, shoving his shoulder playfully. "Don't act like you haven't heard me going on about my political opinions for ages now. You aren't exactly risking me storming out of here because you're a Democrat."

"Fair enough. I had a bit of an advantage going into this one."

"It's the only advantage you're getting tonight," she tells him, "because I'm about to kick your ass in laser tag."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Are you, Evans?"

"Absolutely, Potter," she replies, stepping forward so that they're almost chest-to-chest.

He's close enough that he can smell her perfume, and really, all he'd have to do at this point is lean down a little bit and he'd be kissing her. And fuck, when she's looking at him with that hint of a challenge in her eyes, it's pretty damn hard to ignore that particular potentiality.

But before he can successfully talk himself in  _or_  out of anything, Lily spins on her heel, almost hitting him in the face with her ponytail in the process.

"Come on," she calls, not even turning around to look at him. "The game awaits."

He snaps out of his Lily-induced trance and follows after her, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "So, what's at stake here?"

"At stake?"

"What's the point of a competition if there isn't some sort of prize involved?" he replies.

"Touché." She thinks on it for a moment. "How about… loser buys dinner?"

"You're on," James answers, realising that this is the second time in a 24-hour window that he's made some sort of bet. "But exclusively monetary bets are boring, we need to make this more fun - loser also has to make a public announcement of their inferiority at the precinct tomorrow."

Lily turns her head toward him, looking surprised for the briefest of moments. "You've got yourself a deal. I can't wait to watch you make a fool of yourself tomorrow."

James scoffs at that. "Please. I make a fool of myself every day. Still going to beat you at this."

She laughs at that, and James quite honestly feels pretty proud of how far he's come in just ten hours. Yes, she's still laughing at him just like she did this morning, but now it's because he  _made_  her laugh, not because he'd just stuck his foot in his mouth.

They pay for nine rounds each, get suited up with vests and guns that are essentially smaller replicas of the real versions they normally wear, and are set out into the darkened obstacle course. They're definitely the only two people here over the age of twenty, but James doesn't care much.

He  _is_ still a bit surprised that Lily's picked this location - it seems like something she might write off as childish - but he's not disappointed with the revelation either. If anything, her behavior tonight has made him like her even more.

They're both pretty decent at the game, consistently scoring at the top of their respective teams after each round - they've got a slight advantage over all the teenagers here given that they're actually trained to use guns and whatnot.

After eight rounds, they're at a perfect tie.

"What do you say we make up our own rules for this last round?" Lily asks, examining her laser gun and trying to look vaguely threatening.

"I wouldn't have put you as the type to go rogue," he jokes.

"We're not breaking any official game rules - I would never," she replies. "We're just making this sudden death."

James' massive competitive streak is instantly onboard. "I'm listening."

"Points are irrelevant. First person to take the other out wins."

He grins. "Perfect."

When they're both dumped into the obstacle course for their last round, they immediately head in opposite directions. James has his back to the wall at all times and takes corners carefully - even though this is a friendly competition, his heart is hammering in his chest just as much as it does when he's doing this for real.

They've been in there for five minutes before he catches his first sight of Lily - she's a full head taller than any of the pre-teen boys also playing this round with them and therefore very hard to miss.

Although that makes him an even easier target to identify than her, really. He's even taller than her, after all.

And it's apparent that she's seen him too, because she immediately ducks behind a wall, pointing her gun in his direction and firing aimlessly.

James isn't a complete amateur, so he dodges her random shots with ease. Instead, he goes about cornering her - he knows for a fact that the area she's hiding in is a dead end, and he has every intent of using that against her.

He's gotten himself plastered against the wall currently dividing them, fully prepared to aim at her the moment she tries to make a run for it. He gradually inches closer and closer to the gap in the wall - he's all but got her trapped at this point.

He's about to round the corner and fire when -

"Oh! James!"

He falters for just a moment, trying to decipher her tone, and that moment of hesitation is where he makes his mistake.

In a matter of seconds, he's flat on his back, Lily straddling him and aiming her gun at his chest.

"I win, Potter," she says, before pulling the trigger and making his vest go dead.

It'll turn back on in about thirty seconds, because their sudden death rules don't apply to the system powering these vests, but it's a loss on their terms nonetheless.

But weirdly enough, with Lily looking down at him with the most self-satisfied smirk ever, illuminated only by the red light coming off of her gun and vest, he can't really find it in himself to actually be all that disappointed.

He plays along with it nonetheless, feigning offense. "You played dirty, Evans."

She shrugs. "I like to call it creative gameplay."

"You just don't like that I had you cornered," he retorts, just as his vest comes back to life again.

Lily lazily shoots his vest again, just for the hell of it. "Please," she replies, rolling off of him and standing up, "I wasn't cornered."

"You're so ridiculously stubborn, you know that?" he says, laughing. "If that was a suspect, you would most definitely have called that being cornered."

"I  _am_ ridiculously stubborn, actually - I'm glad you've just now noticed. Now get up so we can go get food - I'm starving, and you're buying."

He pushes himself up off the ground - honestly, he's lucky this place is covered in mats, otherwise that tackle would've hurt a hell of a lot more - before answering her. "Oh, trust me, I've noticed for a while - do I need to remind you of the time you made Shacklebolt reprint the entire IT manual because you found a typo?"

"It changed the meaning of the sentence," she responds immediately. "It could've resulted in some fatal mistakes."

"Right, because someone is  _actually_ going to think they're meant to stick a headphone cord into an outlet because they read it in an old IT manual that's practically falling out of the binder it's in."

Lily raises her eyebrows at him challengingly. "You haven't hung around many of the beat cops then."

"See, but you assume people actually even  _read_ that manual to begin with though," he replies as they make their way out of the venue, passing by the preteens still firing amongst themselves.

" _I_ read that manual," she says, unbuckling her vest and pulling it over her head.

"Yes, and you're a complete anomaly, Evans." He follows suit, hanging his gun and vest up on the wall. "Tell me, was there really anything in there that you didn't already know how to do?"

That one gives her pause, and in the light, James notices just how many strands of hair have escaped her ponytail. It's a little bit wild and every bit adorable.

"I - I'm sure there was something," she eventually insists.

"Whatever you say," he responds, smirking, because he knows he's won this one.

They go up the street to a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant - James had briefly considered taking her somewhere fancier, but it's late and they're both starving; plus, he knows for a fact that Lily has really strong feelings about red curry, and this place makes some of the best he's ever had.

He tells her as much when they walk in. "They make a bomb red curry here - you'll love it."

She looks at him oddly. "How do you know I'm getting red curry?"

Shit, shit, shit - does he sound like one of those douchebags who orders for their date now? "I just - I know you're picky about them. You're always talking about which places do it well."

"Oh," she says, sounding a bit surprised. "I guess I am."

They get seated, and that brief bout of awkwardness fades away as soon as it arrived - it appears that Lily  _didn't_ interpret his comment the way he'd feared she might've. He knows that if she did, she would've already walked right out the restaurant door by now.

Dinner goes by with ease; neither of them are really pretending to be anything they're not. They're just James and Lily, the same way they are at work or when they're at some sort of after-hours get-together, but this time, it's only the two of them.

James quite likes that particular change of pace.

" _Fuck_ , this is good," Lily says when their food arrives. "As much as I hate admitting you're right about things, I commend you on your restaurant-picking skills."

He grins at that. "I've gotta be good for  _something_ , you know. And since laser tag apparently isn't it, finding good Thai food is my replacement superpower."

"That's not too shabby a superpower, honestly," she replies, before taking another bite.

"I mean, it wouldn't have been my first choice," he tells her, "but all the cool ones were apparently taken by actual superheroes. I got stuck with whatever was left."

That gets a small laugh out of her, although it's obvious she's trying to pretend she doesn't find it funny.

"What about you?" he adds. "If you could have any superpower, what would it be?"

She thinks on that for a moment, pushing a few errant strands of hair out of her face. "Invisibility."

"Why's that?"

"Well, first of all, it'd make work so much easier," she replies. "Instead of having to actually hide out, you can just be in plain sight and never get noticed. Plus, I dunno, I always liked the idea as a kid of being able to just disappear for a few hours with a book and not have anyone come take the book away from me."

It feels like there's a little more to that particular story than she's telling, but James doesn't want to push that particular envelope right now. "When Sirius and I were younger - like, elementary or middle school-aged, mind you - we used to pretend my dad's old cloaks made us invisible. We obviously weren't, but my parents played along the whole time and just acted really confused when we moved stuff around in the kitchen cabinets or whatnot."

Lily laughs at that. "Why does it not surprise me that you and Sirius were getting up to all sorts of troublesome shit even as kids?"

"Oh, trust me - we were even worse as kids."

She shudders at that - but it's very obviously faked. "I am  _so_ happy I didn't know you as a teenager then."

"If you think we're annoying now, you haven't seen anything. The principal at our high school  _still_ tells my mom how many grey hairs we apparently gave her. Also that if either Sirius or I ever have kids and move back to that school district, she's immediately retiring."

"And yet somehow you ended up a cop," she replies.

"Oh, we never broke the law or anything like that," he immediately defends. "We were… admittedly, kind of bullies to some of the kids that were constantly going around spouting racist shit - and I knocked a kid out once for calling Sirius a homophobic slur - but for the most part, it was just dumb shit like filling the hallway with solo cups or hiding a bunch of alarm clocks in the library."

Much to his surprise, she's got a softer look when he finishes his explanation. "I mean, that's the most justifiable reason for knocking someone out, honestly."

James shrugs. "It wasn't my finest moment, really. I still didn't really have a grip on my  _own_ sexuality at that point, really - not to mention that Sirius is basically my brother - and the combination of both of those things and that word just resulted in me flying into an uncontrollable rage. I don't regret the first punch, but I regret a number of the ones that came after."

Lily just hums in response to that, and he hopes it's hum of approval rather than one of distaste.

She opens her mouth to say something, but they're interrupted by the arrival of the check. The waiter wordlessly places in in front of James before walking away, and James already knows Lily's going to have words about that as soon as she's out of earshot.

She does, in fact, prove his predictions correct. "God, like, I know that you're paying because you lost, but are we really still in the 1950s here? Are we really still assuming that there's no way that maybe  _I'm_ the one paying the bill?"

"We're living in a society bound by patriarchal norms, Evans," James replies, getting his wallet out of his pocket and sliding his card into the envelope. "I'm obviously the only one capable of being the breadwinner here."

He gives her a wry grin. "Honestly, I really  _should_ let you pay the bill - you  _are_ about to be making significantly more money than me, after all. That makes  _you_ the breadwinner in this situation, really."

"Absolutely not," she replies. "Absurdly sexist assumptions aside, I tackled you for a free dinner and I fully intend on cashing in on that."

"As you should," he tells her, just as the waiter comes back by and picks up the check.

Once he's paid and tipped properly - Lily hadn't been shy about ensuring he'd tipped at least 20% - they walk out of the restaurant.

"I can call us a Lyft back to your place?" James offers when they get outside, and it's only when Lily gives him a disbelieving look that he realises the error in what he's said.

Foot, meet mouth: round… probably like seventy-something at this point.

"I just meant," he quickly amends, "I only live like five blocks from you, so I figured it'd be cheaper if we just rode together and I walked the rest of the way back."

Lily's expression loses its edge. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense." When James pulls out his phone, she's quick to tack on, "But I'm paying you back for half. I didn't win anything this time."

James just laughs a little at that. "Sure."

As much as he'd be happy to pay for the full fare, he knows that she will stubbornly insist on paying her half until she's blue in the face, and it's not really the type of thing worth actually arguing about.

Their ride shows up, and they fall into a comfortable sort of silence on the ride home; it's not the sort of thing that feels necessary to break, so James embraces it, sneaking little glances at Lily every so often, watching the lights from outside briefly illuminate her face.

She catches his eye when he does it one time, and smiles softly, like they're sharing some sort of secret between the two of them.

It does things to his stomach that it absolutely shouldn't.

In a much shorter amount of time than he would've liked, they're pulling up to Lily's apartment building. They both get out of the car, and as their driver pulls away, James finds himself automatically turning to face Lily, as if she's got some sort of magnetic pull over him.

"This was fun," he tells her, fully aware that they're much closer now than they've been for most of the night. "We should do it again sometime."

"Tomorrow?" she asks, with just a hint of mischief in her eyes.

"Damn, tomorrow doesn't work," James replies, feigning disappointment. "I'm supposed to be doing some sort of stakeout thing with one of my coworkers, and she's a bit of a rule-follower, you see, so I don't think she'd be too pleased to find out I was abandoning her to go on laser tag dates."

Lily hums, as if considering this. "That's true - you wouldn't want to disappoint her."

"No, I definitely wouldn't," he says, taking stock of the fact that they're now so close that they're practically touching.

They stay like that for just half a second, teetering on the edge of something, before James takes the leap and breaks the mounting tension between them. "I'm going to kiss you, if that's alright."

Lily gives the tiniest of nods, and that's the exact answer James needs to close what's left of the space between them and put his lips on hers.

And if Lily's smiles did things to his stomach, her kisses go straight to his head. It was only meant to be a quick thing - a soft goodbye gesture - but the way that Lily's arms almost immediately wrap around his neck and her fingers slide into the hair at the nape of his neck suggests that while this kiss may be many things,'quick' is most definitely not among them.

His hands instantly find her waist, pulling her into him even tighter than before. The intensity very quickly ratchets up a few levels, and soon enough he's got her back against the brick wall of her building, doing his best to memorise the feeling of her lips and the way her body molds so perfectly into his.

This is so much more than a simple goodnight kiss - this is pure electricity between the two of them that he both wasn't expecting and is somehow entirely unsurprised by. It's Lily, of course, how could he have expected it to be anything other than fucking amazing, but  _fucking hell_.

Were it not for the very pointed coughs of a few passersby, he would very happily stay in this exact position for the rest of his goddamn life.

But he takes the hint from the people walking by, and forces himself to pull back. And he very quickly adds this moment to the list of things he wants to memorise, because Lily's flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes in the dimly lit street are a masterpiece he never wants to forget.

Lily takes a few moments to get her bearings, as if kissing him had quite literally made her forget where she was. He feels oddly proud of that.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," she says after a moment, dropping her arms from their place around his neck and immediately digging into her crossbody bag to retrieve her keys.

"See you tomorrow, Lily," he replies, giving her a dumb half-wave before turning and walking down the street.

He'd be lying if he said he didn't spent the entire five-block walk home with a little extra spring in his step, or if he acted like he was able to wipe the slightly-dopey grin off his face until a full ten minutes after he got home, or if he pretended like he didn't spend at least fifteen minutes telling his cat  _exactly_ how well his date went.

He falls asleep feeling about a million times more confident about winning this bet than he did when he woke up this morning.


	3. Woman Like Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spending every night undercover* and still I wonder  
> Could you fall for a woman like me?  
> -Little Mix  
>  *fully aware this is not the actual lyric, but it works better phrased like this

* * *

_DAY TWO_

* * *

 

In contrast, Lily wakes up on the second day of the bet feeling much less confident than she did on day one.

She really thought she'd shown off some of her worst traits yesterday - all under the guise of a sweet date, but still enough to at least create some sort of hesitation in James - but it seems that nothing of the sort was accomplished.

After the overly flirtatious beginning, which clearly just about stunned the pants off of him at first, she went about subtly showing off some of her 'worst' traits - that is, the ones that previous boyfriends had always had issues with. She got onto him for how he organised (or didn't organise) his emails, she took complete control of both asking him out and planning the entire date, and she'd picked something that showed off how ruthlessly competitive she was.

None of those things - overly nitpicky, dominant, competitive - are ever seen as remotely positive traits in a woman. (Which is perhaps an issue of ingrained societal gender norms and expectations, but that's an issue for another time. She can address that particular issue when her pride isn't on the line.)

And yet, when he'd kissed her at the end of the night, it was with so much affection and fervor that Lily still gets a little dizzy just thinking about it. She can't remember the last time a first kiss with a guy sent that much warmth through her veins - if it  _ever_  did.

But, she supposes, it was only the first date. Everyone experiences a first date in rose-coloured glasses from time to time. There's still nine other days to prove to him just how incompatible they really are.

Of course, there's also the totally separate fact that last night  _also_ showed her a totally different side of James than she'd expected to see - the type that owned up to his past mistakes, that kept up with her constant teasing and gave it back just as good, that surprised her again and again.

It was really his perceptiveness that got to her - the way he'd clearly caught onto some of her habits over the years, like always ordering a large iced coffee the morning after a night out or always getting red curry at Thai restaurants. It's just the tiniest of red flags that maybe, just maybe, her original theory surrounding James' crush on her was wrong.

And she well and truly enjoyed herself last night. It easily earned a spot in one of her top five best first dates of all time, which is  _such_ a concerning thing considering her whole goal here is to get James to dump her.

All of these thoughts are just wildly buzzing around her head as she makes herself a cup of tea, making it completely impossible to have anything close to a nice, calming morning.

And she'd really been hoping for one of those - between the inevitable grilling she's going to get from Marlene (as Mary listens in but acts entirely nonchalant about it) at work and the fact that she's going to be on a stakeout until god knows when tonight, a moment of peace would've been nice preparation for all of that.

But no, her stupid brain can't even manage that much.

Lily's normally rather proud of her Type A, borderline-perfectionist tendencies; but right now, when her brain is doing that thing where it thinks itself into a never-ending spiral, not so much.

Once she's finished her tea and gotten dressed - doing up all the buttons this time - she leaves for work.

She lives walking distance from the 73rd precinct - she's always loved being able to make the trek to and from work on foot when the weather allows it, and it's something she's going to miss at her new position, where she'll likely have to take the subway up a few stops or get used to calling a Lyft every time.

And sure, she  _could_ move, but why would she want to? Her apartment is honestly kind of perfect, and she's close to all of her friends. And James.

Not that that last one will matter much after she wins this bet, but it pops into her brain nonetheless.

When she gets to the precinct, most of her co-workers haven't arrived yet. That's pretty standard, really - Lily's normally one of the earliest to get there in the mornings. Yesterday was the obvious exception, but that's because the line at Dunkin was bordering on absurd and Lily  _needed_ that extra dose of caffeine and sugar.

Peter's already at his desk, and when he sees that Lily's walked into the room, he practically lights up. "Good morning, Lily!" he says cheerily, opening his mouth again as if to add something else before thinking better of it.

He probably wants to ask about her date with James, but has decided to wait until more people are here.

Bet aside,  _this_ is why she's had her rule against dating coworkers for so long. She doesn't need her workplace - where she's supposed to be talked about for her  _work_  - to be littered with gossip about her love life.

She can only hope that no one judges her too much for this thing with James - especially Captain Dumbledore, heaven forbid, because she cares more about his opinion of her than she cares to admit.

Drunk Lily was definitely a bit of an idiot to have made this bet in the first place (for a number of reasons), but it's too late to back out of anything now.

The remainder of her coworkers gradually trickle in, and Lily makes a pointed effort to not make eye contact with any of them. She knows it's an avoidance tactic that's destined for failure, but it doesn't stop her from trying anyways.

The only arrival she does look up for is James, and she's actually a bit surprised by the small herd of butterflies that take up residence in her stomach when she makes eye contact with him.

It's ridiculous, really - she doesn't suddenly have real feelings for a guy she's previously only been marginally attracted to all because of one date. That's not how things are supposed to work.

"Morning, Evans," he says, grinning at her as he takes his seat.

"Good morning, Potter," she replies, although what she'd expected to come out in a purely professional tone sounds decidedly warmer.

There's a distinct sound of office chair wheels speeding across the tile floor, but even that isn't enough warning when Sirius comes careening into her desk.

"So, Prongs and my dearest Lily," Sirius says, splaying his hands out dramatically so that one hand rests on James' desk and one hand rests on Lily's, "which one of you is going to give me all the juicy details about your night last night?"

"Neither of us," James responds immediately, which is yet another surprise to Lily. She would've thought, given his show-offy tendencies, that he would immediately want to brag about how well their date went.

Unless… he doesn't think it went as well as she did?

Which should, theoretically, feel like a win, because it would mean she's actually in a better place in this bet than she thought, but she feels a knot of worry form in her stomach nonetheless.

The silence from both of them seems to only egg Sirius on further. "Based on the lack of reply," he reasons, "things either went really well or really terrible. And given that you're both still talking to each other, I'm inclined to go with the former, but then again, maybe it's all a front? I'm going to need some official confirmation either way."

"Pads, give the poor folks a break," Remus calls out from his desk.

Sirius spins to face him, frowning. "Don't be a buzzkill, Moony. Don't you want to know how their date went?"

"Obviously," Remus replies. "But you're not going to get information out of them like that - are you forgetting absolutely  _everything_ you know about interrogation tactics?"

"So what you're saying is we need to lock them in a room somewhere until they answer me?"

"I've got an extra set of handcuffs!" Peter chimes in.

At that, Lily turns to glare at him. "Pettigrew, if you even  _think_ about handcuffing me, so help me god I will cut your hands  _off_."

Peter mimes surrender at that, clearly not wanting to test Lily's ire any further.

"Come on, just tell us how it went and we'll all leave you alone," Marlene says, joining in on the conversation and making Lily feel very, very surrounded.

"Did you at least kiss?" Sirius tacks on.

Lily feels a telltale heat creep up her cheeks at that - because  _oh_ , did they kiss - and she knows it's all over at that.

"You  _did_!" Sirius exclaims triumphantly. And then he seems to realise something, because he looks across the pit to someone totally different. "Shacklebolt! You hear that? Evans and Prongs kissed, and  _they're_ still stakeout partners."

"Padfoot…" James says warningly, probably worried that this is going to result in the two of them getting split up.

But Kingsley doesn't react that way at all. "They did?" he asks with a clear tone of excitement, before clearing his throat and sounding much more serious. "They did. Well, given that they have no past record of doing it  _on_ the job, I see no problem with them continuing to be partners. You and Lupin's record, on the other hand, isn't quite as clean."

"Aw, c'mon," Sirius whines, before being noticeably elbowed in the side by Remus.

"Let's not  _interfere_  in this," the other man says softly, with a look in his eyes suggesting there's a deeper meaning behind his words. "Besides, I've already done my late-night shift for the week anyways, and I'd quite like to keep my Friday night free."

Sirius pouts a little at that, but shuts up anyways.

"What on earth are all of you piddling about for?" their captain's voice rings out over the precinct. "Stop crowding Potter and Evans' desks and get back to your own work."

"But Captain," Peter interjects, "we're just trying to find out more about - "

"As thrilling as these two's personal lives may be to the rest of you, I can assure you that neither of them want to talk about it right now," Dumbledore replies, and Lily feels a rush of relief.

Dumbledore seemingly knows about her and James - it'd be hard not to, given how loud Sirius has been about it for the past ten minutes - and doesn't seem to care much.

Deep down, Lily kind of knew that would be the case; Dumbledore's a pretty objective captain, and is much more likely to judge a person based on the quality of their police work than on anything that might be going on outside of work hours, but she'd fretted about it nonetheless.

Despite his eccentricities and the fact that he's often damn near impossible to read, he's definitely one of Lily's role models. He's done a pretty incredible job running the precinct - even  _with_ Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James constantly getting up to stupid shit - and earning and maintaining his respect is one of the most important things in the world to her.

And as is often to happen when she cares a lot about something, she thinks way too far into it and worries about it at entirely unnecessary levels.

But Dumbledore's word in the precinct is law, so the four people clustered around her desk gradually roll their chairs back to their workspaces - although not without some audible grumbling about 'no fun.'

Almost as soon as that chaos in the precinct calms down, and everyone's gotten back to work at their own desks, a new form of chaos enters the office, in the form of an elevator ding and a tiny, stout woman wearing a pink headband with her captain's uniform.

Dolores Umbridge is the Deputy Chief of the NYPD and, in Lily's opinion, an absolute living nightmare.

And that take says a  _lot_ about Umbridge's character, because Lily has a natural deference to authority figures, so it takes quite a bit of horrific behavior for her to outwardly dislike someone who's got so much power over her.

Umbridge starts making a beeline for Captain Dumbledore's office.

"Do you have an appointment?" Marlene asks, but the question falls on deaf ears. Umbridge just opens the door to Dumbledore's office entirely without preamble, and closes it behind her before anyone can even see the captain's reaction, much less eavesdrop on the conversation.

It doesn't stop anyone from talking about it though.

"What do you think she wants?" James asks aloud.

"Probably trying to figure out another way to ruin our lives," Mary chimes in, sounding even more annoyed than usual.

"Or she's come up with yet another ridiculous PR stunt that our precinct just  _has_ to be the ones to run," Remus adds.

For some reason, any time the NYPD's PR department has come up with a promotional campaign involving 'real life cops,' Umbridge has come directly to the 73rd Precinct in pursuit of 'volunteers.'

It's an absurd concept, and any cop that participates is basically subjecting themselves to public ridicule - which is probably why Umbridge is so intent on making Dumbledore's precinct get involved.

They've got some sort of historical epic rivalry that goes all the way back to their training days.

But using stupid PR campaigns is  _never_ actually going to do anything helpful for the NYPD's reputation, in Lily's opinion, especially when leadership continues to ignore valid accusations of police brutality and pardon officers who have essentially committed homicide on the job.

No amount of posters with smiling officers and anecdotes about their dog is going to address the systematic failure of the organization to hold their employees responsible for their abuse of power.

"I refuse to participate again," James says stubbornly. "Someone graffiti'd a mustache onto my cat."

"Didn't they also draw a dick on your forehead?" Lily asks.

"Yeah, but I don't care about that," he replies. "But when you disrespect Godric, you've gone too far."

She giggles at that, because it's honestly kind of hilarious that he's more defensive of his  _cat's_ honor than his own.

"Regardless, these stupid PR campaigns always suck," Sirius says, putting his feet up on his desk. "And someone needs to tell Umbridge that before we get made fools of again."

"I think that's kind of the point though, Padfoot," Remus comments. "Although someone  _could_ do with telling the PR department that  _pitches_ these sorts of ideas that their ideas suck and nothing's going to change with public opinion until the department as a whole takes responsibility for their actions."

"Oh but  _why_ would we ever want to do that?" Marlene answers sarcastically. "That requires actual work,and it's just  _so_ much easier to stick a picture of me and my wife's dog in a subway station. Admittedly, I looked  _great_ in that picture, but my natural beauty is going to do fuck-all to fix their reputation."

"You guys know Umbridge can probably hear you, right?" Kingsley interrupts. "Captain Dumbledore's office isn't  _that_ soundproof."

"Good, I want her to hear how much she sucks," Mary answers.

Lily privately agrees, even though she hasn't actually participated in this conversation much.

It's weirdly perfect timing though, because Umbridge picks that exact moment to walk out of Dumbledore's office, a smug, self-satisfied grin on her toadlike features.

When Dumbledore walks out of his office, he looks decidedly uncomfortable - Lily can't help but wonder exactly what went down in that conversation that has him looking like that, because he's usually relatively unshaken by most anything.

"Umbridge has informed me that a few precincts will likely be undergoing remodeling efforts over the next few months, and our precinct is going to house their employees while the construction is underway," he announces to the room. "Meaning that we'll likely have to consolidate space to accommodate them and their desks."

"Enjoy the lack of personal space," Umbridge adds with a tone of artificial sweetness, before the elevator dings and she steps inside.

When the doors close, the precinct goes up in a storm of commentary - and Lily absolutely doesn't hold back this time.

"Why is she  _always_ like this?"

"I can't believe the nerve of that woman."

"It's absurd that she just gets to walk all over us out of personal vengeance."

"At least no one's drawing a mustache on my cat this time."

That last comment from James draws Lily out of her righteous anger, and she looks over at him.

He shrugs. "Hey, I'm just looking at the positives here."

"I'm suprised you're not more annoyed about this," she says. "You're not going to be able to just roll your chair around the pit anymore."

"Eh, I can still do it - I'll just hit more things. It's like a giant real-life game of pinball," he replies. "I'm surprised  _you're_ so annoyed by it - you're not even going to be here when this happens."

Shit - she'd almost forgotten about that. "It's the principle of the thing," she insists anyways. "It's ridiculous that she can abuse her power and wield it against people she harbors a personal vendetta against."

"Oh yeah no, that part's definitely absurd," James agrees.

The one bright side of Umbridge's unannounced arrival and announcement is that it gets pretty much everyone in the precinct to stop obsessing over James and Lily's date - it doesn't even dominate the conversation when Lily and Marlene walk up the street to grab lunch, when questions about her personal life are much more appropriate.

"I honestly can't decide who pisses me off more - Umbridge or Snape," Marlene says while they're waiting in line.

The Deputy Chief who likes making their lives a nightmare or the Major Crimes detective who insists on stealing their thunder whenever he can - it's a pretty tough decision, honestly.

"My vote's definitely on Snape," Lily replies. "At least Umbridge doesn't hit on me when she's trying to ruin my life."

"Oh god, I almost forgot about his thing for you," Marlene says, shuddering.

"You'd think he'd take a hint, but apparently not," Lily replies, thinking back to the numerous times Snape had blatantly made his fascination with her known.

It's awfully funny to her, in a twisted sort of way, that he somehow thinks she'd still be interested in him when he regularly tries to stab both her and the rest of her colleagues in the back.

"Well, maybe now that you're dating James, he'll leave you alone."

"I somehow doubt that would stop him," Lily reasons. "If anything, it'll probably just spurn him on. Not to mention, James and I aren't dating - or at least, we won't be for much longer."

"But you  _did_ kiss him," Marlene replies.

"I did." She pauses her conversation with Marlene to place her order, before jumping right back in where she'd left off. "Doesn't change the fact that I'm still going to win this bet."

"As both a neutral spectator to this bet and a person who is literally always right about these sorts of things, I can say with a lot of confidence that you are definitely not going to win this bet. James' heart eyes are even bigger this morning than they were yesterday."

Lily waves that off. "First dates are like that. We've still got nine days for things to go downhill."

That's the thing she's been repeating to herself all day, anyways. Nine days for James to realise she's not the one for him and for the stupid butterflies she gets whenever he looks at her to just die already.

Marlene rolls her eyes, clearly still convinced that she's right, but doesn't push the point any further. Instead, she starts off on a story about this past weekend, when she swears she and Dorcas saw Justin Timberlake in Soho.

 

* * *

 

Lily gets to go home early today - one of the side effects of doing a stakeout in the evening is that she's granted a half day in return.

She probably could benefit from taking a nap while she's home - she's going to be horrifically tired tomorrow morning if she doesn't - but she's also got a weird thing against midday naps and as a result, ends up showering, cleaning her apartment a bit, and reading a book instead.

On her way back to the police station, she grabs a pack of Red Bulls from a corner store and just accepts that she'll need half of them to get through tonight, and the other half to get through tomorrow.

Of course, when she gets there and walks around back to where the unmarked car they're taking to the stakeout tonight is parked, James is somehow there even earlier than she is.

"Do you know how unhealthy those are for you, Evans?" he asks with a smirk when she opens the car door. "And to think, you say  _my_ eating habits are bad."

She slides into the passenger seat and pops open one of the cans. "There's a difference between a couple energy drinks and putting Cheetos on a Cosmic Brownie."

"That was a  _dare_ ," he insists. "I love both of those things individually, but I would  _never_ combine them of my own volition."

"You still ate it, that counts for something."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn't eat that on a dare," he says, turning to face her. "If your honor was on the line, tell me you wouldn't eat some absurd food combination just to prove a point."

Given the absurd lengths she  _is_ currently going to in order to prove a point - though there's no food involved in this one - he's definitely one-hundred percent right in that assessment. "My honor isn't dependent on absurd food combinations."

"Right," James laughs, turning the car on. "I forget that you and your honor are above the rest of us mere mortals."

"Not above mortals," Lily corrects, "just above you, Sirius, Remus, and Peter."

James pauses in his attempt to back out of the police lot and puts a hand to his heart in mock offense. "So we're not even mortals anymore? What are we, some sort of goblin underling?"

"I mean, it would explain a lot," Lily teases. "You all sort of  _do_ resemble goblins, in a way."

James doesn't even look away from the road. "Are you calling me ugly, Evans? Because if so, I feel very personally attacked."

"So let me clarify, you're not offended when someone draws a dick on your forehead, but you  _are_ offended when someone insinuates that you look like a goblin?"

"Um, yes?" James replies. "How is telling someone they look like a goblin supposed to be the  _less_  offensive alternative to drawing a dick on a shitty NYPD PR photo of them?"

"Fair enough," Lily concedes. And then, because she feels like it's necessary to clarify, just in case he  _was_ actually offended, she adds, "You don't actually look like a goblin, by the way."

"That's probably the closest I'll get to a compliment from you, so I'll take it."

"Oh, shut it," she says, resisting the urge to jokingly shove him, because he's driving a car and that's not safe for anyone. "If I actually compliment you, it'll go straight to your already over inflated ego."

"If it's already over inflated, one extra compliment surely can't hurt  _that_ much?"

"Okay, now  _you're_ the one with the terrible logic," she argues. "That's like saying 'oh, if I continue to blow up an already over inflated balloon, there's nothing else bad that can happen, it definitely won't explode and hit me in the fucking face.' "

"Good point, Evans," he says. "We wouldn't want my ego to explode - that would get impossibly messy."

He cranes his head to parallel park the car across the street from the building they're meant to be watching, and the way he suddenly moves closer to her sends a waft of his cologne - or laundry detergent, or body wash, or  _something_  of his that smells impossibly tempting - towards her.

The suddenness of it immediately transports her back to last night, and the moments where she'd had him even closer - particularly, that kiss at the end of the night - and it takes more self control than it should to resist grabbing him by the collar and reprising the whole ordeal.

But they're here on business, and they're  _not_ Sirius and Remus and therefore  _aren't_ going to make out in a cop car while they're meant to be watching a potential crime scene, so Lily restrains that particular impulse.

James gets the car parked with relative ease; Lily's actually impressed at that, because she's still absolutely awful at parallel parking.

"What does an exploded ego even look like, anyways?"

He snorts. "Ask Snape?"

"Hmm, I wouldn't quite call Snape's that," Lily comments. "I think it's the opposite - why else would he overcompensate so much?"

"Why else would he overcompensate so much: title of Snape's sex tape," James replies immediately.

Lily can't suppress her giggle at that. 'Title of your sex tape' jokes are James' own version of those 'that's what she said' type lines, and while Lily probably shouldn't find that type of crude humor all that funny, she does nonetheless.

"Eugh, if Snape has a sex tape, I really hope I never, ever have to know about its existence."

"Likewise," James agrees.

They settle into easy conversation - it's not entirely unlike last night, except instead of sitting at a table for two in a Thai restaurant, they're in a parked car outside of a warehouse.

There should be all sorts of bells going off in Lily's head about how this isn't going even remotely sour, and that she needs to be trying harder to make him dislike her, but the ringing of those alarms is somehow entirely offset by the fact that she's just genuinely enjoying his presence.

"Tell me something I probably don't know about you," he says suddenly.

"What?"

"I feel like I've talked about myself a  _lot_ recently. I mean, you basically got my whole high school detention record last night; now it's your turn."

"Well, and I'm sure you won't find this surprising at all," she tells him, "I didn't get detention once in high school."

James laughs. "Somehow, I entirely expected that."

"High school me never would've expected to be working in the NYPD though," she adds, figuring that she might as well tack on something at least somewhat more surprising. "I actually wanted to be a chemist for a while; my chemistry teacher in high school adored me, and really wanted me to go the whole PhD route."

"Why'd you change your mind?"

"I realised just how expensive it'd be to be in school for that long," she replies. "And my mom got really sick my senior year of high school, and all my college savings went towards that instead."

It's not usually a story she finds herself telling very much, but she's weirdly okay with divulging this information to him.

"So I went to community college just long enough to get my associate's degree, and joined the NYPD from there - it seemed like the most impactful career I could have without needing to put myself in an extreme amount of debt."

James is looking at her, but not in the pitying way she might've expected from him. She knows that he comes from money, and that can sometimes color how people react to her story.

People who grew up comfortable often don't understand that there's a world in which both of those things - a college education and life-saving healthcare - aren't just assumed. When you're wealthy, you don't know what it's like to choose between your child's education and your wife's health - but it's the choice Lily's father had to make, and while  _she_  knows he made the right one, she still sees the regret in his eyes every once in a while when it's brought up that Lily didn't get a four-year degree. And James could never know what any of that's like.

But he doesn't actually say any of the things she'd presumed he might say. He takes her reality at face value, and doesn't question it.

"And now look at you," he says instead, with a wry sort of grin on his face, "destined to run the NYPD someday."

"I don't know about that…" Lily replies modestly, even though she  _would_ love nothing more than to reach that top office one day.

"I do," James responds. "You'd make a brilliant commissioner."

She almost wants to kiss him for that alone.

"Well, thank you," she says. "I suppose it's proof that sometimes things that feel like the end of the fucking world at the time sometimes work out in your favor."

"I can toast to that, Evans," he says, picking up his Coke bottle from the cupholder and clinking it against her Red Bull.

As soon as he puts his drink back down, she switches course. "So, tell me something  _I_ probably don't know."

"Hmm," he replies thoughtfully. "Well, despite you ribbing me about my food choices, I'm actually a pretty good cook - especially when it comes to Indian food."

That's actually relatively unexpected. "Oh really?"

"Yes really," he insists. "Better than most of the Indian places around here, if I do say so myself - my mum taught me a number of her recipes over the years."

She hums. "You'll have to show me sometime."

"Tomorrow?" he replies immediately, before fumbling his words a little bit. "I mean, yeah - I could just, if you wanted to come over to my place after work tomorrow, I could cook you dinner?"

She's a little taken aback by how quickly he'd offered, but she's honestly all too happy to spend more time with him - she's breaking all of her typical rules by spending  _this_ much time with a guy right when they've just started dating, but she just… really enjoys his presence.

Oh yeah, and the bet thing too. Seeing more of him is good for the bet thing too.

"Yeah, I'd like that," she says.

He grins at that. "I'm glad you're not sick of me yet -  _fuck,_ we've got movement."

Lily follows James' eyes to see that, sure enough, there's a van that's just pulled up outside the warehouse. Both the driver and passenger side doors open simultaneously, revealing a short man in a suit and a woman with wildly curly hair dressed in leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.

Lily immediately reaches to the gun sitting against her hip, checking that it's still there.

When the pair go into the building, that's her and James' cue to get out of the car. They do their best to do so casually - who knows if there's still a third person (or more) in the van, and they'd very much  _not_ like to blow their cover immediately.

It's a bit hard to entirely miss the bulletproof vests and guns on both of their hips once they get closer, but a few seconds of anonymity could very well be their saving grace.

They cross the street in relative silence - the only words they exchange are to confirm that Lily's going after the guy in the suit and James is in charge of catching the woman. Lily also takes a peek into the van when she gets close enough to see inside the windows, and at first glance, there doesn't appear to be anyone laying in wait.

The two people emerge from the building just a few moments later, the man holding a briefcase in one hand that he definitely didn't have when he walked in.

"NYPD,  _freeze_!" Lily yells, pulling her gun out of its holster.

But because these things are never that easy, neither one of them actually freezes. Lily and James each go for their respective targets; the man, who's also got that briefcase of his to attend to, is noticeably slower, which very quickly results in Lily getting him on the ground.

It's not entirely unlike the maneuver she's used to get James down yesterday.

She immediately gets the man in handcuffs, and grabs the briefcase as well. Her heart is pounding in her ears as she goes through his Miranda rights - it always is, in these sorts of situations - and it's waking her up more than any Red Bull ever could.

That attuned sense of hearing means that she very distinctly hears the sound of breaking glass inside the warehouse, and immediately starts to wonder what the hell that could mean.

About a minute later, James reappears, out of breath and alone. "She had a getaway car waiting out back," he informs Lily.

"The dirty bitch didn't even tell  _me_ about that," the man in handcuffs mutters angrily. "Second in command and I don't even get to know the escape plans."

Lily's actually a bit taken aback by the revelation that he's  _not_ the one in charge. It's probably the massive difference in the way the two of them were dressed (and maybe something with her socialized biases causing her to automatically assume the man was in charge), but she really wouldn't have pinned the woman in the oversized hoodie as the one running this whole operation.

Of course, Lily still has no idea what this whole operation actually  _is_  anyways.

But that's what the person they've just arrested is for, hopefully. It remains to be seen if they'll be able to get him to talk.

"What's in the case?" James asks, grabbing onto the briefcase and following Lily's lead as she starts to bring their suspect back to the car.

"I'm not telling you that," he responds.

So it seems he's one of the stubborn ones. "We'll just be able to unlock it when we get back to the station, you know," Lily says.

The man still remains silent on the subject.

"What's your name?" James tries again.

"I'm not telling you that either," he reiterates stubbornly. "The pretty one told me I don't have to say anything without an attorney present."

"Huh, I don't remember saying that," James muses, looking over at Lily with a glint in his eye.

She can't help but quirk a smile at that, even if they  _are_ on the job right now. "Would you look at that, your ego exploded even  _without_ my assistance," she comments mildly, as she guides their suspect into the backseat of the car.

"It was a ticking timebomb, I guess," he replies, getting into the driver's seat and putting the briefcase over on Lily's side.

Backup arrives on the scene almost as soon as they're both in the car, and they take over searching the van. There's some pretty intense surveillance equipment and a number of illegal weapons - the second part is a godsend, in a weird sort of way, because it means they've got at least one charge on him and don't have to end up racing against the clock to investigate the contents of the case or interrogate him. They can push both of those things off until tomorrow morning and actually get some proper sleep tonight.

The ride back to the precinct is a bit quieter and less playful than the one on the way over - there's only so much teasing you can pull off when you've got a suspected criminal and apparent second-in-command to some sort of unknown crime operation seated behind you.

When they get back to the station, James takes on the task of bringing their suspect up to one of the holding cells, and Lily takes the case down the the evidence lockers. They'll deal with both of these things in the morning, but for now, it's well past midnight and they've successfully caught at least one part of the pair that's likely responsible for all those bodega robberies and god knows what else.

That's quite enough work for one day.

She runs into James again while she's waiting on the ground floor for a Lyft to show up; she may live walking distance from the precinct, but making that trek in the daylight is massively different from making that same trek at nearly one in the morning, and a car ride home feels like the much safer option here.

"Good work tonight, Evans," he says, walking up next to her.

"You as well."

He runs one of his hands through his hair, before asking, "So… do you actually want to come to my place for dinner tomorrow?"

"I said yes, didn't I?" she replies, nudging him with her shoulder.

"Well, yeah but I didn't know if - I don't know, maybe you'd changed your mind?"

She looks over at him, a bit taken aback to discover that he actually looks serious about it. And she's confused by it - why would  _she_ be the one to change her mind in this situation?

_He's_ the one that's meant to eventually get sick of her, anyways.

"I haven't changed my mind," she reassures him.

His expression melts into something akin to relief. "Oh. Good, I'm looking forward to it then."

"Me too."

She realises that they've somehow moved to face each other over the course of this exchange, and for the second time tonight, she's all-too-tempted to go for a revival of last night.

She almost goes for it this time too, shifting her weight to the balls of her feet as if to pop up on her tiptoes to kiss him - because he's so close and somehow still smells so good despite literally chasing down a criminal earlier tonight - but she's stopped at the last minute by the lights that come streaming into the front windows of the station.

"Shit, uh, fuck, that's my ride," she says, immediately doing her best to collect herself. "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah? Both, uh, at work in the morning and at your place tomorrow night."

Now it's her turn to sound like a nervous wreck, apparently.

But instead of calling her out on her sudden awkwardness, he just smiles at her. "See you tomorrow, Evans."

She spends the entire ride home trying to tell her brain to  _get it together, for fuck's sake_. She's supposed to be showing him why they're incompatible, not fucking collapsing into a puddle every time he looks at her with that silly glint in his eyes.

She'll get her shit together tomorrow.

Maybe.


	4. Messy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If there's a line, then I think that we crossed it  
> If there's a cool, then I think that I lost it  
> -Kiiara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter gets a lil smutty, so if that's not your thing, feel free to scroll past where those plus signs start :)

* * *

__

_DAY THREE_

* * *

 

"You forgot something important yesterday," Lily says to James, the moment he steps into the observation room.

He looks properly confused at that. "What did I forget?"

"You lost a bet, and you still owe me a public announcement of superiority."

"Oh, right - that," he replies, sounding like he was expecting a totally different response. "Yeah, you're right, I did forget about that. Don't worry though - I'll be sure to make it up to you when I proclaim to the entire office that you're a literal goddess who is better than me in every single way imaginable, especially in laser tag."

She doesn't have a good explanation for why the room suddenly feels a few degrees warmer when he calls her a 'literal goddess.'

"What were you expecting me to say?" She can't resist asking.

His hand flies up to run through his hair. "I dunno - you said it as soon as I walked into the room, and we're literally looking at the dude we arrested last night, so my first thought was that it was something case-related, and I was  _positive_ I did all that shit correctly."

The insistence with which he says that last part is almost alarming - though it really shouldn't be. James is a bit careless on the organizational front, but he's remarkably conscientious when it comes to checking off all the little details that have to be handled for each case.

The fact that he can just somehow keep perfect track of all of it in his head, instead of keeping a printed list for it like Lily does (as well as most of the other officers - she's actually  _not_ the odd one out on this one), is both mildly infuriating and slightly impressive.

"Oh no, it definitely wasn't that," she answers, dismissing that concern.

"Good," he says. "Evidence managed to unlock the confiscated case, by the way. Filled with cash, as well as a couple bags of Living Death."

Lily's surprised at that - she wasn't aware this was a drug-related situation. But Living Death is the street name for this awful concoction of drugs that, by all means, should never be mixed together. She's got no idea what the appeal is, given how many people have died by taking just a little too much of it.

"You think this is connected to that case as well?" Lily asks.

"Possibly - at the very least, he probably knows of a supplier and a couple dealers. I get the feeling they're more of the middlemen type - the both of them, that is. They had to have gotten it from someone, but I wouldn't pin a run-of-the-mill drug dealer as the type to have two separate escape plans from a simple pick-up."

He's obviously been thinking about this a good bit - he's holding a half-empty coffee mug and there's darker circles around his eyes than there were last night, suggesting he slept less than she did.

To her knowledge, James isn't usually the type to bring his work home with him unless absolutely necessary, so the fact that he's already spent so much time working through the pieces of this case is kind of surprising. She wonders what kept him up.

For the briefest of moments, she hopes it was about her. Mainly because  _she_ spent a decent part of last night thinking about whether or not she'll have the chance to kiss him again like she did on Wednesday.

And yeah, she's got to get him to lose interest in a week's time, but surely she can still find time for one more heated kiss in there before things start to go south?

Fuck, this  _really_ isn't the thing she needs at the forefront of her mind while going in to investigate a man convicted of unlawful possession of firearms and suspected to be involved with an extensive crime ring.

She suddenly realises that James is watching her, the tiniest hint of mischief in his hazel eyes. "Now, do we want to go in and do this interrogation, or…?"

She nods once, doing her best to clear her head of all those previous thoughts. This case takes priority. "Yes, let's go."

They've done enough interrogations together to know how these things work, and to know how to best play off of each other. Lily, on appearances alone, looks like the much less threatening one - she's good at getting people's guards down. James, on the other hand, comes off as mildly intimidating at first, although that impression is usually blown the moment he makes some dumb joke under his breath.

It puts the suspect - or in this case, the convicted criminal who definitely has intel - into a sense of lulled predictability; they're woefully unprepared when Lily switches it up and turns unexpectedly ruthless.

As a pair, they've got a remarkable success rate.

Lily opens the door into the interrogation room, and James follows her in. The man from last night - who has since identified himself as Bartemius Crouch, Jr., looks up and glares at them.

"My father's on the City Council, you know," he says ruefully. "He'll have this precinct's head for arresting me."

Now that Lily thinks about it,  _that's_ why the name sounded so familiar. There is in fact a Barty Crouch on the City Council.

She's hardly worried about this man's threats, though. She'd much rather see justice served than worry about catering to some rich dude's threats; not to mention that one city councillor hardly has enough power to punish an entire precinct for arresting his son on very legitimate reasons.

"We don't want to make this difficult, Mr. Crouch," she replies soothingly, intentionally playing the role as the gentle interrogator.

She slides into the seat across from their suspect, and James remains standing. He's always the sort of person with endless amounts of nervous energy, especially when they're doing police work, so forcing him to stay still and seated is a mission destined for failure.

Having him pace behind her is massively preferable to watching him drum his fingers on the table nonstop if he's forced to occupy the chair next to her. She switched to 'ruthless cop' far faster than normal the one time that happened.

"You arrested me," Crouch snaps back. "So clearly you  _are_ trying to make things difficult."

"Because you were engaged in illegal activity," James replies. "Not only did you try to run initially, but you were in possession of both a number of illegal firearms  _and_ a bag full of cash and extremely dangerous drugs. Arrest is, you know, typically a natural result of all of those things."

"We're going to look into the plausibility of reducing your sentence if you cooperate and answer some of our questions," Lily adds.

At that, Crouch visibly calms a little. "Reducing my sentence?"

"Yes," she nods. "You said you were second in command, right?"

Crouch makes a grunting noise in the affirmative.

"Well then, I'm sure you've got a good bit of information about the person in charge - that woman you were with last night, right?"

He falls silent.

"She betrayed you, you know," James adds, clearly going into this on a psychological angle. "She ran out the back and left you to take the fall for everything. Doesn't seem very fair to me."

"No, she was a little bitch who did me dirty," Crouch seethes, and Lily swears she sees his tongue twitch out the side of his mouth for the briefest of moments.

"Then cooperating with us really does seem like your best option here," James replies coolly.

Crouch looks like he's weighing this option - Lily might not even have to break out her more ruthless side on this interrogation, with the way James has managed to make this go.

"She's a hitwoman," he eventually declares. "We were there last night to collect payment."

"A hitwoman," Lily repeats.

"Yeah - people pay her to do their dirty work," Crouch replies. She doesn't know  _why_ he feels the need to define the term for her - she's a cop for fuck's sake, she obviously knows what a hitwoman is.

"And who was she collecting payment from?"

"No fucking clue," Crouch shrugs. "Guy wouldn't use his real name - went by an alias of Voldemort in all his communications with her. Overdramatic son of a bitch, he was - no need to go through some massive scheme of setting up a shit ton of hold-ups just to plant payment in the right location."

So that explains the bodega robberies.

"And he wanted her to go after…?"

"Couple by the name of Alice and Frank Longbottom. Not really sure why - Bella's never really given a fuck about  _why_ her clients want people dead, she's just in it for the murder and the profit."

Lily makes a note of those names - she'll need to reach out to Witness Protection today and get the two of them somewhere safe. This person - Bella, apparently - is still on the loose, and even though she may not have actually gotten her payment, there's no telling whether or not she'll try to go after them anyways.

"So Bella's your boss?" James asks, while Lily's still writing down the names.

" _Was_ my boss," he corrects. "I don't work for her anymore - not when she stabbed me in the fucking back like that."

Lily's inclined to point out that he  _also_ doesn't work for her because he's going to jail for a whole host of things - including potential accessory to murder, if this interrogation proves fruitful - but she bites her tongue. That's not going to help the situation at hand.

She tucks a piece of hair behind her ears as she looks back up at Crouch. "Is Bella her real name, or is that an alias as well?"

"That's her real name," he answers. "Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Is she, by chance, married?" James asks abruptly, and Lily's a bit confused as to why he's suddenly veering so off-course from their typical questions.

Crouch shrugs. "More or less. Don't think she talks much to the guy, but yeah she is," he answers. "Why, thinking about making a move when you bring her in?

"Criminals aren't really my type," he replies, brushing off the man's weirdly suggestive comment with ease. "I like the people I date to  _not_ be going to federal prison."

Lily makes a mental note to ask him where the hell he was going with that line of questioning when they get out of here.

"Anyways, Mr. Crouch," Lily says, bringing the conversation back on track, "do you have any idea where this Bellatrix Lestrange might have been planning to move next?"

The rest of the interrogation proves rather fruitful - Crouch doesn't know  _everything_  about the situation, and they've really only got the ghost of an idea of how to track down Bellatrix, but it's better than nothing. Once presented with the idea that he'd been betrayed and could potentially benefit from spilling the beans, he'd been all too willing to throw her under the bus as much as possible.

This case isn't just some little handoff that they happened to catch wind of - this is a whole expansive assassin business, accompanied by a drug trade and a benefactor who was willing to set up a ton of other criminal activity just to yield payment.

This is big.

"Well, I'd say that was another  _roaring_ success," James comments, as soon as they've shut the door to the interrogation room and indicated to the security officers that they're good to take Crouch back down to holding.

"Yeah, that went about as well as I could've hoped," Lily agrees, before changing pace. "Why did you ask if she was married, by the way?"

A dark look crosses James' face, one that she wasn't really expecting. "Bellatrix isn't exactly a common name. Sirius had a cousin by that name - her maiden name was Black too, and I just… I was curious if they could turn out to be one and the same."

Lily only knows bits and pieces about Sirius' early life - she knows it was a bad situation, and that he moved in with James when they were both in high school, and that he hasn't talked to most of his family since - but even with all of that, finding out that one of his cousins might be a paid assassin seems like much more than just a 'bad home life.'

"Shit," is all Lily can think of as response.

James just laughs bitterly. "The best part is, if she  _is_ actually his cousin and it turns out she's literally murdered people, he's  _still_ going to be considered the biggest family disappointment."

Lily doesn't really know how to respond to that either, because  _god_ , that's so fucked up. Sirius may be a bit of a mess and a goofball at times, but he's a genuinely good person down to his very soul, and Lily can't understand how he could possibly be considered a disappointment.

James changes the subject, saving Lily from trying to figure out what to say. "Anyways, I'm going to go see if we've got any previous criminal records on Lestrange - I'm assuming you're planning on reaching out to Witness Protection about the Longbottoms?"

"Yep," she answers. "Let me know if you find anything on Lestrange."

He does a dorky little mock salute. "Roger that."

Her heart shouldn't flutter at that - why the  _fuck_ is it fluttering at that?

Instead of pondering an answer to that, she heads off to go find Kingsley, who should be able to give her the authorization she needs to get Alice and Frank Longbottom under Witness Protection.

He can probably tell by the way she walks up to him, looking like she's on a mission, that the interrogation was a success. "Got a good bit of information from the guy you two arrested last night, I take it?" he confirms.

"More than a good bit," Lily replies. "This is a bigger case than I think any of us anticipated. Which brings me to why I'm here - I need authorization to put a couple into Witness Protection."

"For what?"

"That exchange wasn't just about a drug deal or anything like that. That exchange was payment for putting out a hit on two people."

Kingsley's eyes go wide at that - he clearly wasn't anticipating this case taking that turn either. "Right, well then, yeah, I'll authorize it. Fill out the form and get it to me and we'll get the ball rolling on this ASAP."

"Yes, sir."

"And relay to Dumbledore everything that you've just found out," he adds. "I'm sure he'll want to be apprised of the newfound intensity of this situation."

"Yes, sir," Lily repeats.

She gets back to her desk, and immediately starts filling out the electronic form for a Witness Protection request. Once it's filled out and sent to Kingsley for authorization, she gets up and heads over to Dumbledore's office.

She raps on the open door gently. "Captain? Is now a good time?"

Dumbledore swivels in his desk chair to face her, folding his hands on the desk. "Yes, now is a good time."

The completely flat nature of his voice means that she can't quite tell how he feels about her coming into his office right now. For the sake of not worrying herself into a hole, she goes with the assumption that he's fine with it.

She shuts the door behind her and takes a seat in the chair across from his desk. "Kingsley wanted me to make sure you were aware that - "

"That the arrest you and Potter made last night was much more consequential than we originally anticipated?"

Lily blinks, unsure how he already knew that's what she was here about. "Yes, sir. It seems that we've encountered a professional hitwoman. She was there last night to retrieve payment - the man we arrested was her second-in-command. It doesn't sound like he was ever directly involved, but he was certainly an accessory at least."

"Interesting," Dumbledore answers with a hum. "Well, I will leave you and Potter as the two detectives handling this case - it seems as though the two of you have a pretty good handle on things thus far, and I think it's safe to presume that your personal relationship will not interfere with your professional performance."

The way he says it so confidently makes Lily's heart swell with pride - because he clearly does trust her and her work quite a bit - but she also knows that his statement comes with a bit of a warning as well. A warning that he'll be disappointed in her if she proves him wrong.

And she most  _definitely_ does not want to disappoint him.

"We can definitely handle this case," she reaffirms quickly. "I don't let my personal life interfere with my work."

"I know, Evans. I trust you."

And there he goes with the 'I trust you' line - now she'll  _really_ have fucked things over if she somehow can't keep up her promise.

But it's absurd to think she wouldn't be able to, anyways - it's not like her and James are ever actually going to get serious, so there's no way things would get complicated or intense enough to bleed into their ability to handle a major case like this.

"Thank you, sir," she replies, looking more at the phoenix portrait above his head than at Dumbledore himself.

The giant painting in Dumbledore's office is one of those things that - when he first became captain and hung the thing - Lily thought had deep symbolic meaning. Like, a phoenix rising from the ashes being representative of his ability to rise above his upbringing and do great things.

But no. Turns out, he just likes this particular phoenix painting. And the phoenix is fucking named  _Cheddar_ , of all things. 'His plumage reminds me of a really excellent Vermont cheddar' had been Dumbledore's explanation for it, on the one occasion Sirius had plucked up the nerve to ask about it.

Instead of dwelling on the painting for too much longer, she turns on her heel and walks out of Dumbledore's office. She's got plenty of work ahead of her today.

And she ends up head-down for the majority of the day, researching anything she can find related to Lestrange, Crouch, or even Voldemort - there's not much information beyond basic records, but that's enough to start building a really detailed case file.

But naturally, her day doesn't come without a few disturbances. The first one is the acceptable sort of disruption - James making good on his side of their deal.

"Attention everyone," he says loudly, once everyone's back from lunch. "I just need all of you to know that Lily Evans is the greatest person to ever walk this earth and massively superior to me in every way, shape, and form - especially when it pertains to laser tag."

Then he looks at her and grins. "That good enough, Evans?"

She shrugs, barely concealing a smile. "It'll do."

The second disturbance to her productivity is a much less pleasant one. It comes about an hour before her day is set to come to a close, in the form of an officer walking out of the elevator. As soon as she recognises the greasy black hair and hooked nose, she immediately averts her eyes, but it's a moment too late.

"Hello, Lily," he says as he approaches her desk, and  _honestly_ , even the way he says her name sets her on edge.

"Snape," she responds plainly, not even looking up from her work to acknowledge him.

"Got anything interesting there?" She can feel him craning his head to look at her computer monitor, and she's massively grateful that she doesn't currently have any sensitive information up on the screen.

"Nothing too out-of-the-ordinary," she lies, because telling the truth would almost certainly mean losing this case.

Snape hails from the Major Crimes unit, and Lily swears his main motivation in life is the satisfaction of taking a promising case from the regular detectives just before they've cracked it and taking all the credit for himself. And as a result, Sirius, Remus, James, and Peter started calling him the 'Vulture' a few years back.

Lily hasn't pointed out that this actually kind of makes Snape sound like he's part of their weird little nickname squad, purely because  _she_ likes being able to think of him as a vulture. She may not indulge the boys in any of  _their_ strange animal-themed nicknames, but Snape's is just too perfect to pass up.

"Well if you get anything good, I'll be around," he says, and Lily has to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

As if she'd actively seek him out to solve a case that she's damn well capable of handling herself.

"I'm just here dropping off some of the leftover files from that case I took off of Potter's hands last week," he adds, acting as if Lily actually cares why he's here. "Double homicide - a little above his pay grade, I think."

He says that second part louder, and she knows that he's trying to make sure James hears him say it, in the hopes of getting a rise out of him.

Predictably, it works. "You and I both know I'd all but tracked down the apartment number of the perps before you took that one from me," James growls.

"But who was the one to track down that apartment number and actually  _make_ the arrest?" Snape taunts, a wicked grin spreading across his features, making him look particularly vulture-like. "Oh, yeah. That was me."

James looks like he's about ready to fight at this point, and a brawl is definitely not what any of them need at this point. "James, it's not worth it," Lily warns gently. Then she turns back to Snape, her voice firmer. "Go drop your fucking files off."

That, at the very least, throws Snape off a little, and the predatory grin on his face slips a little as he looks between the two of them. "Fair enough," he eventually answers. "I've got to get back to Major Crimes soon anyways - we've got  _much_ more important work to do than anything that's getting done here."

He walks away from their desks, and all Lily can think is  _good riddance._

"You called me James."

Lily turns to look at her deskmate, who's looking at her curiously.

It takes her a moment to figure out what he's referring to. "I guess I did," she replies simply.

He smirks at her, in that cheeky little way that makes the dimple on his right cheek stand out. "I like it. You should do that more often."

"You'll just have to earn it from me somehow," she answers airily, before looking back at her computer.

The taunt just falls off her tongue so effortlessly that it takes her a few moments to realise that she was most definitely blatantly flirting with him without even thinking about it.

"I'll see what I can do."

 

* * *

 

_I'll grab a bottle of wine on my way over - you need me to pick up anything else?_

_nah, i should have everything here_

_and i was going to say you didn't need to bring wine, but_

_all i've got here is gin and cheap beer, and that's not going to mix well with this_

_so yes, wine_

_Sounds like a plan. :)_

_i'm in 308 by the way_

_you can just find my name on the callbox and i'll let you in_

_Will do._

_See you soon!_

Lily double checks all the information on her phone as she walks up to James' apartment building, holding a bottle of red wine. She doesn't quite know why, but she's oddly nervous right now.

It's silly, feeling this way, because the stakes literally could not be lower - she's  _trying_ to make him lose interest, for fuck's sake, but she's awkwardly bouncing on the balls of her feet as she looks for his name on the callbox anyways.

She finds his name, jams the button, and waits as it rings.

"Evans?" James' voice crackles through the box.

"The one and only."

He doesn't answer that; instead, the door just buzzes to let her in. She climbs the three sets of stairs required to get up to his unit, walking down the hall until she finds 308.

She knocks on the door, and it's answered by a shout of, "It's open!"

When she opens the door, she can't actually see James yet - he's presumably in the kitchen, where the light is coming from, and she takes stock of his place as she walks in that direction.

Much to her surprise, the whole place isn't a disaster. Unlike his completely chaotic desk, his apartment - or at least, what she can see of it - is actually relatively neat. It's a bit disappointing, bet-wise, because she figured she could probably get on his nerves pretty quickly with her neat freak tendencies, but there's not all that much she could pick apart here.

She walks into the kitchen area, and is greeted by the sight of James moving about the kitchen with a sort of practiced fluidity.

"I would've come and opened the door myself," he says, not even looking up from what he's working on, "but I was - yeah." He lifts his hand out of the bowl, demonstrating that he's largely incapacitated by all the spices stuck to his fingers.

"You're really outdoing yourself," she comments mildly. "This is quite a set-up you've got here."

"I take this stuff seriously, I told you that," he replies, finally lifting his head to grin at her. "Give me like ten minutes - I should be able to put most of this in the oven by then and I'll be a better host at that point."

He laughs. "I should've fucking accounted for the fact that you're always ten minutes early when I calculated when to start cooking."

She hums at that - he says it in a joking way, but who knows, maybe he's actually annoyed at that? That would be a good thing for her, really. "I brought the wine," she says. "I had to guess on what would go well with Indian food, but this should be good enough."

"I'm hardly a wine snob, Evans," he laughs. "I'm very easy to please. As long as it's not moscato, I'm happy."

She wrinkles her nose at the mere suggestion. "Eugh, no. It's a syrah - Google said that would pair well enough."

"Works for me," he answers, grabbing a spoon and mixing the sauce he's got on the stove. "I can pour us both a glass once I'm done with this. Or, if you'd rather do it yourself instead of waiting, there are wineglasses in the first cabinet on your right and a corkscrew in the bottom left drawer."

Lily takes the second option, following his directions and successfully finding both of those things. The insides of his cabinets are, admittedly, much more chaotic than the exterior of his apartment, but the fact that he knew exactly where to find everything despite that is kind of impressive.

She's starting to realise that James' entire organizational system is internal - he knows exactly where everything is because he can just somehow store all of that knowledge in his fucking brain instead of using color-coded tabs.

She opens the bottle, pouring them both a healthy dose of wine, before picking up one of the glasses. She sips it slowly, watching James work. He's clearly done this many times before - he's moving through all the steps of this recipe with a kind of ease - and it's very,  _very_ attractive, if she's being honest with herself.

Not for the first time, she realises that being alone with him in his apartment comes with the very real possibility of round two of Wednesday night - if not farther - and the thought fills her with nervous anticipation.

Sex wasn't part of the deal - 'unless you want to, I guess' were Mary's exact words - but Lily finds that yes, she actually  _does_ want to, if the circumstances for it arise.

And dammit, she's going to do her best to make those circumstances arise.

James puts a large ceramic pot into the oven, quickly washes and dries his hands, and then grabs the glass of wine she's had set out for him.

"Alright, now that that's handled," he says, holding his glass in her direction, "cheers."

"Cheers," she echoes, clinking her glass against his.

They stand there for a second, and then James suddenly gets his bearings or something, because he practically jumps. "Oh! I - uh, have a couch and whatnot. We don't have to just stand here for the full twenty-five minutes that needs to cook for."

Lily can't help but laugh at his awkwardness. "Yeah, let's go to the couch and whatnot."

He quickly turns on a timer, and they head out to his living area. She sits down on the left side of the couch, fully expecting James to sit right next to her, but instead, he gives her space. And she supposes that respectfulness is nice, but she'd had a few ideas of how they could spend twenty-five minutes, and none of them will work if he's a full arm's length away from her.

She pulls her right leg underneath her, mindlessly twirling the ripped threads on her jeans. As she takes another sip of her wine, she looks around his living room. It's pretty small, and practically connected to the kitchen, but he's got a massive TV and a decent collection of books, DVDs, and video games.

And then she sees something that totally throws off her previous plans. "Oh my god,  _please_ tell me that's Mario Kart."

James laughs. "It is."

"Can we please?"

She honestly doesn't care if wanting to play video games makes James like her more or less - she hasn't played this in  _years_ and she'll be  _damned_ if she passes up the opportunity to play when it's directly in front of her.

"Sure, but I have dibs on Peach, sorry."

She looks at him disbelievingly. "You  _really_ think I'd go for Peach when King Boo is an option?"

He gets up from the couch to set up the console. "Hm, so you're a King Boo type - I'll have to keep that one in mind. I'm doing an academic study on what types of people go for which Mario Kart characters."

"That sounds scientific," she says, a bit sarcastically, and James responds by flinging a controller in her direction.

Once he gets things running, they start off on a Grand Prix, and the apartment very quickly turns into an absolute cesspool of swearing. Both of them, it seems, are very vocal when they play.

The last race ends just as the timer goes off - James finishes first and Lily in third - and he immediately jumps up off the couch to get the food out of the oven.

"I'm out of practice," she yells at him, even as she gets up and collects both of their wineglasses. "Once I get the chance to play as often as you do, I guarantee I'll kick your ass."

"Whatever you say, babe," he replies, starting to arrange dishes on the table.

She decides not to comment on the 'babe' part of that (or dwell on the fact that she kind of liked it), and instead refills their drinks.

"So," she begins, once he's got everything arranged on his two-person dining table like a proper feast, "what is all of this, exactly?"

He beams at her, and it's apparent he was just  _waiting_ for her to ask that. "This," he says, gesturing to the largest pot, "is chicken biryani, the smaller one is malai palak, and this is naan, obviously. I meant to make a proper Indian dessert as well, but I knew I wasn't going to have time for that, so I just picked up a few different things from the bakery section of the Indian grocery store."

By the end of his speech, Lily is stuck somewhere between touched and turned-on.

Honestly, the fact that he's managed to create all of these things - and the fact that he's done all of it specifically for her - is absolutely fucking incredible.

She tells him as much, and his smile broadens. "You haven't actually tasted any of it yet, Evans," he responds. "You may very well hate all of it."

She does not, in fact, hate all of it. The exact opposite, really - James hadn't been exaggerating about his cooking skills on their stakeout; everything he's prepared is fantastic. She's been absolutely spoiled by incredible food with him twice now.

"How have you not, I don't know, quit your job at the precinct and opened a restaurant by now?" she asks, in between bites.

"Some things are more fun as hobbies," he replies, almost immediately, and it's clear he's already thought about this once or twice. "I'd probably fucking  _hate_ cooking if it was my full-time job - it's better this way. Plus, I actually really like being a detective - I know you think I don't take things seriously, but I actually  _do_ give a damn about our work."

She's a bit stunned at that last bit. "I never… I know you do."

For all that he goofs off and enjoys contributing to the regular doses of chaos at work, Lily would never argue that he's not a damn good detective. There's a reason she likes having him as her partner on cases, after all.

"You do?"

"Yes, Potter," she says, insistent about it this time. "You're a pretty amazing detective, even when you  _do_ pull shit like locking Lupin and Pettigrew out on the roof for three hours."

"Did you just… actually compliment me?" he asks disbelievingly. "I didn't know you were capable of that."

"I did," she answers. "I actually  _do_ tend to compliment people when they aren't already walking around with an ego the size of Canada."

He smirks at her. "I thought myego exploded yesterday though? How can it be both exploded  _and_  the size of Canada?"

"Oh, shut up." She waves him off. "I don't have to be one-hundred percent consistent on my metaphors."

"That attitude won't win you a Pulitzer, Evans," he shoots back, grinning.

"Good thing I'm not gunning for one of those then."

They sit there, talking and teasing each other over long-cleared plates, for almost an hour. Eventually, James seems to take stock of the food still sitting in the serving dishes in front of them and stands up suddenly, gathering up their empty plates.

She gets up and follows him into the kitchen. "Hey, no. You cooked, let me at least do the dishes."

He smiles and shakes his head at her, like he can't quite believe her insistence. "All yours," he says, as he sets the dishes in the sink.

She gets into a rhythm, washing all the dishes as James puts the leftovers in the fridge. He eventually grabs a dishtowel and follows after her, drying all of the things she's just washed. It feels surprisingly domestic, honestly.

What's even more surprising is how much she likes that.

Once he's dried the last plate and stuck it back into the cabinet, he asks, "So I take it you want a rematch in Mario Kart at this point?"

"I… suppose that's an option," she answers, although beating James in a video game is most definitely not the first thing on her mind right now.

"You sound like you've got something else in mind," he observes.

"I do." She reaches out and runs her fingers down the side of his arm - although her hands are still a little damp from washing dishes, which kind of ruins the seductive effect she'd been hoping for.

But he seems to get the message anyways. And it has the consequence of making him temporarily short-circuit, apparently. "You - yeah - we can… we can definitely explore whatever else it is you've got in mind."

"Exploration is certainly one word for it," she says, taking half a step closer to him, feeling particularly emboldened by the way he's looking at her. "Or we can just call it what it is."

His hand finds her hip, almost automatically. "And that is?"

"Sex," she answers plainly.

His irises are almost fully overtaken by black at this point, and he's watching her like he wants to commit this moment to memory. And that's nice and all, she supposes, but there's so many better things he could be doing besides fucking studying her.

Like, you know, actually fucking her.

+++

So she wraps her arms around his neck, pulls his face down to meet hers, and when their lips meet, it's electricity all over again. She feels it course through her veins as his hands tighten around her waist, closing the remaining space between them.

She's just as surprised by it this time as she was the first time - the intensityto which she feels this…  _thing_ between them. She was with Benjy not too long ago, so it's not like she's gone long enough without kissing anyone to forget what it feels like, but she can't remember anything ever feeling quite like  _this_.

His hands trace the sides of her body oh-so-slowly, almost as if he's trying to memorise the curves of it by touch in the same way he was trying to memorise her by sight earlier, and it's absolutely  _maddening_.

She slides one hand into his hair, pulling on it just enough to make him moan into the kiss, while the other hand slides across his shoulder, down his chest, resting on his abdomen, feeling the muscles tense under her touch everywhere she goes.

The tiny little logical voice in the back of her head reminds her that she's supposed to be trying to make him lose interest, and perhaps sex isn't the best way to make a guy  _less_ into her. She very quickly shuts that voice of reason down though, because it's only day three.

She's still got seven days to fuck things up. The bet can temporarily take a goddamn hike.

And yeah, she could probably do a lot of damage by intentionally being bad in bed, but honestly, even  _with_ the bet in play, why the fuck would she want to do that? Lily may be competitive to a fault, but she's also not stupid enough to intentionally sabotage what's already promising to be pretty good sex.

And truthfully, she's not even sure she'd be capable of sabotage at this point. With the heat already coiled in the pit of her stomach and the way the most innocent of touches is already driving her spare, she's entirely at the mercy of the hormones and adrenaline pumping through her veins.

The hand that was resting on her hip moves upwards, slipping underneath her shirt, and that first dose of skin-on-skin contact - that first taste of everything that's to come - has her teetering on the edge of control.

They're both still fully clothed and she is already so,  _so_ turned on.

She presses her hips against his, desperate for more. He's already hard - she can feel him through his jeans - so she's not alone in needing this to progress further.

James pulls his lips away from her mouth and starts kissing other parts - her jaw, along her neck, creating new shockwaves just underneath the skin with every gentle touch. And when he lightly nips at her pulse point, she can't help the little moan that escapes her.

Her hands find the hem of his shirt, tugging it upwards. "Take this off."

He pulls back from her, and there's no denying the fact that he looks pretty damn pleased with himself right about now. "Patience, Evans. We're getting there."

But he listens to her directions and pulls his shirt over his head, letting it fall to the ground. "Your turn," he tells her.

Her shirt very quickly joins his on the floor - although she's got half a mind to go ahead and fold it now, because leaving clothes in a heap really isn't something she enjoys doing. But when James kisses her again and they're fully skin-to-skin, everything intensifies. For all that he's been moving slowly and preaching patience, there's no denying that they're both rapidly approaching a fever pitch.

When his fingers dip underneath her bra and run along the side of her breast for the first time, she fully cracks. "As nice as making out in your kitchen is," she says breathlessly, "can we, I don't know, move this to an actual bed?"

"As you wish," he replies, grabbing her hand and starting to lead her towards the closed door that she assumes is his bedroom. "I'll have to kick Godric out of there first though."

Lily laughs, thinking of James' smushed-face kitty. "As much as I  _do_ want to meet your cat, introducing him to voyeurism probably isn't the best first impression."

That gets a laugh out of him as well, as he opens the bedroom door and starts looking around. After a moment, he crosses the room and comes back holding a large orange cat.

While he goes to put Godric down somewhere in the living room - she distinctly hears him tell the cat 'you'll just have to hang out here for the night, okay?' and can barely contain her giggle at that - Lily unhooks her bra and hangs it on his doorknob, before sitting right in the middle of his bed. The door's open just wide enough that the light from his living room makes her clearly visible, and it's almost too perfect a set-up.

So when James walks back into the bedroom, he's very effectively struck speechless.

And  _goddamn_ does it feel good to have the upper hand again.

He's on the bed and on top of her with remarkable speed, glasses clumsily ditched on the bedside table, and it doesn't take long until he's kissing her with a newfound intensity.

That kiss doesn't last too much longer before he drops his head down lower, running his tongue over one of her nipples before taking it into his mouth. She gasps and arches her back into him - because  _fuck_ if this isn't incredibly arousing, as if she wasn't sopping wet already - and one of his hands comes up to cup the other breast, his thumb swirling around the already-hardening nub.

She could get lost in this sensation, she really could, but she also really needs him to be in other places right about now, is practically squirming underneath him out of a need to be touched. She's about to tell him as much, but then his lips are moving up to her collarbone and neck and the hand that was on her chest starts moving downward, almost as if he knew what she was going to ask for before she could vocalise it.

When his fingers reach the button of her jeans, he picks his head up to look her in the eyes. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," she answers, practically stumbling over the word in an attempt to get it out as fast as she can. "Yes, this is absolutely okay."

He unbuttons her jeans with relative ease, but getting the damn things off is a different story entirely. She mentally scolds herself for wearing skinny jeans on a night when she  _knew_ there was a decent chance things would end like this, but it's too late for her to change that now, so she helps him out by shimmying her hips a little until he can finally pull them all the way off. Her underwear follows soon after.

Standing up at the end of the bed, he quickly undoes his own jeans and slides both them and his boxers off in one motion. She takes in the sight of him, completely naked, and  _god_ , he really  _is_  fucking gorgeous, in a specifically just-her-type kind of way.

When he gets back onto the bed, instead of climbing on top of her and kissing her again like she was expecting, he settles himself between her thighs.

He starts slowly, pressing gentle kisses to the inside of her thigh, to the crease of her hip, and oh my god, she's going to  _scream_ if he doesn't fucking  _touch her already_. "Please, just - "

James chuckles, and his warm breath against her is a tease in and of itself. "Evans, - "

"If you say 'patience' again, I  _will_ fight you."

"I don't think that's a satisfying outcome for either of us," he muses, before running his tongue along the length of her and holy  _fuck_ she almost comes undone right then and there.

One of her hands quickly finds purchase in his hair, as his arm comes to lay across her hips, keeping them firmly pressed into the mattress as he gradually ups the intensity, figuring out what makes her moan and sticking to it once he finds it. The tension in her stomach ignites again, building and building until she's on the very edge and quite positive she's going to explode with the pressure of it all.

And then he curls one, then two fingers inside of her, and the tension snaps.

She's not quite sure if the jumble of words coming out of her mouth even makes sense, but James continues his ministrations until she melts into the mattress, absolutely reduced to putty.

He gently kisses his way up her stomach, the hollow between her breasts, her collarbone, and finally, rests his forehead against hers.

"And to think," she says, unable to fight off the dopey grin on her face, "here I thought the only thing your mouth was good for was making inappropriately timed jokes."

He just laughs at that, before rolling onto his back and bringing her with him.

"Your turn?" she asks breathlessly, reaching between them to wrap her fingers around his length.

"To be perfectly honest," he says, punctuating his sentence with a quick kiss to her lips that folds into a groan as she strokes him, "I'd rather be inside you."

"That can be arranged," she replies cheekily, propping herself up on her hands. "Do you have a condom?"

"Uh, yeah. Top drawer of the nightstand."

She crawls over to the side of his bed with the rickety little white table, and slides open the top drawer. Sure enough, there's a number of them thrown in there relatively haphazardly - including a bright yellow one that catches her eye.

She looks over at James. "Why do you have banana-flavored condoms?"

He looks puzzled for a second, then laughs. "Those were probably a gag gift from Sirius at some point, in all honesty."

She grabs a decidedly  _not_ banana-flavored one and tears open the wrapper, leaving the foil packet on the nightstand.

"I've never really understood the appeal of flavored condoms," she says conversationally, as she crosses to the other side of the bed, straddles him, starts to roll the condom on. "I have never once, in my entire life, been giving a blowjob and been like, 'Huh, you know what would really improve this whole experience? If this tasted like strawberries.' I'd prefer  _not_  to associate the taste of my favorite fruit with having someone's dick in my mouth, thank you very much."

Once the condom's on, she looks back up at James, who's been watching her intently. "I know you probably made a very valid point, but I should also probably let you know that I heard absolutely none of it."

"It  _was_  a very valid point," she tells him, positioning herself above him. She's got a second part to that retort prepared, but she chooses instead to bypass that and sink down onto him, and  _damn_ if that wasn't the better decision.

" _Fuck_ , Lily," James swears, his head falling back onto the pillow with a dull thud and his hands automatically moving to her hips.

"Working on it," she teases, placing her hands just above his shoulders and starting to ride him, slowly at first, feeling those knots in her stomach start to form anew.

She intends to keep up that pace for a little bit longer, to watch him squirm and get impatient in the same way he'd done to her before, but one of his hands moves up to her breast and pinches her nipple, and the other finds her clit again and -  _fuck._

She gasps loudly and her arms almost give out underneath her. "God, yes, that again, please."

He swirls his fingers against her and it's just  _so fucking good_ and this time she actually does end up buckling at the elbows and closing the space between them. She presses a kiss against his cheek, to his jawline, and he uses the moment to wrap an arm around her middle and flip them around so that she's on her back.

She reaches up to brush her hair out of her face. "What makes you think you get to be on top now?" she says, as he props himself up on his elbows.

"Just figured we'd both benefit from a change in pace, is all," he replies cheekily, pulling one of her legs up under his arm before pressing into her again.

This time, it's her turn to swear loudly, because  _holy shit_ this angle is brilliant, and she wraps her legs around him, digging her heels into his back. His first few thrusts are slow and measured, and while Lily appreciates that giving him control hasn't resulted in him just jackhammering one into her, he needs to speed the fuck up  _right now_.

She moans when he kisses the hollow of her neck, and she feels him chuckle against her skin. "How's that change of pace working out for you?"

"I - fuck you," she says breathlessly, her fingernails digging into his back as his hand moves between them again.

"Also working on it," he retorts, picking up the pace just a little.

And Lily wants to tell him that he can't just  _use her fucking line against her like that_ , but the words that actually escape her lips are much less of that and much more of "Yes, right there, oh my  _god_."

"You're fucking incredible," James says against her skin. His strokes are shallower and more uneven now, and Lily can tell he's getting close.

But he's apparently determined to get her there first, because his fingers start to move faster and more insistently on her clit. She lifts her hips into it, and the shift is - " _James_."

It's probably fitting that that's the only word she's capable of getting out, because it's literally all that's in her head right now - James, James, James, repeated over and over like an anthem - everything is him, he's surrounding her and consuming her and she throws her head back against the pillow in ecstasy as she reaches her breaking point for the second time tonight.

And that moment was apparently his undoing as well; a few moments later, she hears him groan, feels his weight press her into the mattress.

He could very well stay there, crushing her into the pillows, for as long as he wants - Lily finds she rather likes the idea of being so pressed into him that she can't tell where her body ends and his begins - but he lifts himself off of her again, and before she even has the chance to properly open her eyes again, he's softly kissing his way up her neck and jaw, ending with a lingering kiss on her lips.

When he pulls back, Lily makes a noise that even she can admit sounds incredibly pathetic.

"I've got to get this thing off, you know," he says, laughing at the way she's pouting at him.

"Yeah, yeah," she says, waving him off and letting him get up.

+++

When he goes into the bathroom, the first dose of reality hits her. How the hell is she supposed to be content with this being a one-time thing?

Fuck. She really,  _really_  likes him.

And not just in a post-sex oxytocin-induced haze sort of way - but in a big, 'she could get used to everything over the past few days becoming her life now' sort of way.

If she wins this bet because he breaks up with her, because her initial assumptions were correct and, once he gets to know her better, it turns out he's not into her as much as he thought he was, she's actually going to be... well, at least a little bit heartbroken by it.

This was absolutely not an outcome she'd anticipated at  _all_.

She's saved from pondering on that point for too much longer though, because James comes back from the bathroom and she has to get up to go as well. And when she comes back and joins him under the covers, he immediately pulls her close to him in a way that doesn't let her brain do much questioning.

So instead, she sinks into his touch and lets herself focus exclusively on the present. And in the present, he is definitely still very much interested in her.

"Well, I suppose I know how to earn it now," he comments mildly, as she intertwines one of her legs with his.

She blinks at him. "Earn what?"

"You called me James again," he says, grinning. "Apparently all I have to do to get you to call me James is make you come."

"This seems like a mutually beneficial situation for the both of us," she answers, as he starts to gently run his fingers through her hair.

The motion is so soothing, the featherlight brushes of his fingers on her scalp, and she starts to feel her eyelids grow heavier.

"Shit, we never actually ate any of the desserts, you know."

"That can be breakfast," she mumbles, curling her head closer into his chest. Dessert for breakfast is massively out of the realm of her normal acceptable behavior, but she's too damn comfortable right now to even think about leaving the bed.

Who needs dessert, really? This moment of bliss is sweet enough on its own.

He laughs softly at that, and she can feel it in his chest. "Okay, it can be breakfast," he relents.

There's a lot of shit bouncing around in her brain in the aftermath of tonight that she really needs to sort out at some point, but for now, she's perfectly content letting James' soft touch lull her to sleep.


	5. She Looks So Perfect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got a mixtape straight out of ‘94, got your ripped skinny jeans lying on the floor  
> And I know now that I’m so down  
> -5 Seconds of Summer

* * *

_DAY FOUR_

* * *

 

When James first wakes up with Lily Evans asleep in his arms, he's quite positive that he's still dreaming. Her hair is messily fanned across the pillow and his chest, and one of her legs is wrapped around one of his own. She'd woken up in the middle of the night and asked to borrow one of his T-shirts, so she's currently in a faded CUNY Soccer shirt of his.

The only evidence that this isn't just one of his fantasies is that the arm that's under her head has gone completely numb.

He almost wants to laugh at the fact that his original plan for winning this bet had involved him taking her out on their first date  _tonight_ , and he wasn't even sure if he was even going to try and  _kiss_ her then, much less… well,  _this_.

He can't deny that he's still a little confused by it all - by how fast they've moved in three days after not even getting so much as a hint that she felt anything for him for two whole years - but at the same time, it's all felt so natural that he's really had no need to question it much.

Sirius will never let him live this down if James ever admits it, but that bet of theirs is maybe turning out to be one of the best things that's ever happened to him.

Lily starts to stir, and before he has the chance to consider whether or not it's weird that he's just been laying there looking at her, she opens her eyes.

Her bleary, half-awake expression is oddly endearing - when she's fully awake, she's a full-blown force of nature in constant movement, so seeing her so relaxed and still is like witnessing a totally different side of her.

It's a side he could very quickly get used to seeing.

"Alright, Evans?" he says, unable to stop himself from smiling at her.

"Mmm," she hums contentedly, stretching out. James subtly angles his hips away from her as she does so, suddenly much more aware of how his body has reacted to waking up right next to her.

"Good morning," she follows eventually, sitting up and stretching again, this time bringing her arms above her head.

"I wasn't planning on staying the night, you know." She leans back on her hands and looks down at him.

"I do know," he says, chuckling under his breath. "You told me multiple times last night. Most of them while you were in my bed and wearing my shirt."

She looks slightly bashful at that, and it's remarkably endearing. He's almost got half a mind to pull her back down to him, to maybe revisit all of the places they went last night, but he's interrupted from weighing that option by a rather insistent clawing at his bedroom door.

Lily immediately turns towards the noise. "Oh! Godric!"

She gets up out of the bed and moves to go open the door, and it finally gives James the chance to flex his fingers, trying to get the tingling sensation all down his arm to finally go away.

"Hello, sweet boy!" Lily says as she opens the door, in a tone James doesn't think he's ever heard out of her before.

"Be careful," he warns, "he's a little wary around - "

He doesn't really get to finish that thought, because his cat has already started nuzzling Lily's leg as she leans over to pet him.

"Yes?" Lily says, as Godric flops over onto his side to demand further petting.

James grins, having finally regained enough feeling in his arm to prop himself up on his hands. "Never mind."

Even his _cat_ instantly likes her. What are the fucking odds.

"You are just the fluffiest little guy, aren't you?" she coos. "James, he's purring!"

James is actually positive that, if hearts were capable of exploding, his would be a fucking wasteland at this point. He can actually  _feel_ it in his chest, the sheer amount of affection he has in watching her coddle his stupid cat that he loves more than most humans.

None of that is what he says out loud though. Instead, he chokes out a snarky, "Well, yes, cats occasionally do that."

"No wonder you were so offended someone graffiti'd him," she replies, paying no mind to his sarcasm as she turns back to face Godric again. "You're a  _very_ special kitty."

"Don't worry, I get it, Evans," he says with a laugh, getting out of bed. "You like my cat more than me."

"How can you  _not_ like this face?" she says, moving to run the back of her hand along Godric's cheek.

"How can you not like  _this one_?" James replies, gesturing to himself, as he sidesteps her ripped skinny jeans lying on the floor.

Lily looks conflicted for a brief second, and James really has no idea what she's thinking about, but the frown is gone from her face almost as quickly as it appeared. "I think we've already established how I feel about your face, thank you very much."

"Oh, have we?" His tone is joking, but the underlying question is serious. They've spent quite a lot of time joking and flirting over the past few days (and then obviously, last night happened too), but James really has no idea what's  _actually_ happening here.

And it feels a bit too soon to pull out the whole 'what are we' conversation, given that they've only been on two dates, but… well, he's over a third of the way through this bet, and he  _thinks_ he might be winning, but he really can't be sure.

But Lily keeps it along the joking path. "And, you know, the attached physique," she adds, looking him up and down with a smirk on her face. He's only wearing a pair of boxers, so not much is left to her imagination.

"Just using me for my body then," he teases, because as much as he wants a serious answer, he doesn't want to ask that question seriously just yet. Not when things are this good without pushing them.

"And your cooking, obviously," she says, pausing her petting of Godric and standing up. His cat doesn't like the sudden lack of attention much, and starts softly butting his head against her shin. "You still have those desserts from last night?"

He laughs - half at her, half at his cat. "And here I thought you were joking about that last night - doesn't dessert for breakfast break all sorts of your rules?"

"I've broken a lot of my rules already," she says, with a shy sort of grin. "Might as well commit to it. Although I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea, if you've got it."

 _Damn_ , he should've remembered she's more of a tea person and picked some up from the store yesterday. Although, to be fair, he wasn't really expecting her to stay the night to begin with. "Afraid I've only got coffee," he answers.

"That'll work too," she says, walking out into his living area as he follows behind her, "although only if you've got milk and sugar."

"I do in fact have both of those things. One coffee, coming right up." He shoots her a pair of finger guns and heads to the kitchen area. "There's a couple of cat toys near the TV if you want - the wand is his favorite."

He busies himself with getting the coffee machine going and pulling the cardboard boxes of desserts out of his fridge. When he looks up again, Lily's taken his advice and has a feather dangling in front of Godric, as he jumps and paws at it.

That same feeling from earlier, that enormous thing settling in his chest and filling him up with the sheer force of it all, comes back just as powerfully, and  _fucking hell_ , it hits him how much he wants this to be his life  _every_ Saturday morning. He wants every Saturday morning to be spent like this, just watching Lily - maybe as his girlfriend, maybe as something more than that, somewhere down the line - play with his cat while he makes breakfast, all of it so stupidly domestic but absolutely fucking perfect.

He's known he liked her for a while, yes, but it's not until he's actually had all the possibilities of a life with Lily staring him in the face that it hits him just how badly he wants it. How badly he wants her.

The intensity of it is mind-boggling.

James' phone starts dinging repeatedly, and it's a slight distraction from the onslaught of thoughts in his head. Rather predictably, it's a series of text from Sirius.

_so_

_because i didn't have to be on a stakeout_

_remus and i had a bottle of wine each last night_

_we proceeded to drunkenly book a cabin for tonight in upstate_

_and like_

_a big one_

_with multiple bedrooms_

"How the hell are you  _that_ popular at nine a.m. on a Saturday?" Lily asks, not even looking up from watching Godric attempt to pounce.

James snorts as he starts to tap out a reply. "It's literally all Sirius. He's notorious for occasionally needing like ten messages to communicate a sentence."

_good job?_

_i can't decide if you telling me means it's a good or a bad thing_

_i'm telling you_

_because we might as well take advantage of the extra bedrooms_

_think of it as a free vacation_

_and ask lily to come_

_…_

_this feels like a trap_

James is, admittedly, very confused by this proposition. Isn't Sirius supposed to be rooting for him and Lily to  _not_ end up together by the end of this? Inviting the two of them to what essentially amounts to a double date doesn't really seem to accomplish that particular objective.

Unless he's got some master scheme to somehow make Lily dump him. (Can he be dumped? Are they even enough of anything that dumping would even be what it's called?)

The coffee pot dings to let James know it's done, so he busies himself with doling out the coffee between two mugs while waiting for Sirius to reply.

_honest to god it's not a trap_

_this isn't part of the bet, i swear_

_moony and i are just drunk (now hungover) idiots who want company_

_and tbh, we're actually HELPING you here_

_you should be GRATEFUL_

_and TRUST me instead of questioning my motives_

James snorts again at Sirius' dramatics, before tapping out a reply.

_okay, fine_

_i'll ask lily_

_good_

_text her and let us know what she says_

He can't help but smile to himself at Sirius' suggestion as he stirs the milk and sugar into Lily's coffee, because little does Sirius know that he doesn't need to text someone who's sitting in his living room wearing his college T-shirt.

He grabs her coffee and his, walking out to the couch and extending the much lighter-colored mug of coffee to her. "Evans?"

"Oh, thank you," she replies, taking the mug from him and bringing it up to her lips.

"If you haven't gotten sick of me yet," he starts, desperately hoping that he sounds casual, "Padfoot and Moony apparently drunkenly booked a huge cabin upstate for tonight and invited the both of us along."

She looks at him quizzically, the hand still moving the wand toy coming to a halt. "Both of us?"

"Sirius very specifically name-dropped you, yes."

Much to Godric's clear disappointment, she sets the toy on his coffee table and looks at him. "And do  _you_ want me to come? It sounds like I'd be intruding on some sort of boys' weekend, so if, you know, you'd rather invite Peter…"

He's kind of surprised by how uncertain she sounds. She's usually so confident with him, probably because it's painfully obvious to her how much he likes her - he really is utter shit at hiding it - so this visibly nervous version of her is unexpected.

"No, no, I definitely want you to come," he reassures her. "Plus, I don't think it's meant to be a boys' weekend, Padfoot made it sound more like a couples' thing, and - "

Shit.

"Not that we're necessarily a couple," he backtracks, because this was precisely the thing he  _didn't_ want to approach this morning. "Just, you know, whatever we are. Yeah."

He really needs to finish his coffee before he's allowed to open his mouth again.

"We can be whatever you want us to be," she replies, with a tone of nonchalance that even he can tell is faked. "I'm light and breezy."

And he can't help but bust out laughing at that. "Evans, I would call you a whole lot of things, but 'light and breezy' is definitely not one of them."

"And what would you call me then?"

"Oh no," he teases, "I don't spend all morning trying to get you to give me a straight compliment instead of doting on my cat just for you to get one out of me that easily."

She hums at that, setting down her coffee mug. "But I  _did_ compliment you. Both this morning and last night, if you recall."

She had, in fact, amongst other things, called him a good detective last night. And his work is something he takes pride in - necessary goofing off notwithstanding - so it  _was_  a pretty nice thing to be complimented on, in fairness.

Suddenly, his mug is plucked out of his hand and joins hers on the table. "So really, you  _owe_  mea compliment, if anything."

Before he really has time to process it, Lily's scooting closer to him and throwing her legs across his lap, her face just a few inches from his own.

He's got half a mind to just kiss her right then and there, but he's got a pretty good inkling Lily won't go down quite that easily.

And for all his teasing, he's really got no real reason notto tell her at least  _some_ of the things that have been floating around his head all morning anyways.

"You're beautiful," he tells her, slowly tracing circles on her exposed thighs with his fingers and watching with undisguised pleasure as a flush starts creeping up her cheeks, "and terrifyingly smart, and passionate, and insanely driven, and - "

He doesn't get to finish that last thought though, because she's closing what little space was left between them and taking his face between her hands as she kisses him.

She tastes like the coffee she's been drinking, and it wakes him up even more than caffeine ever could.

For as breathless as kissing Lily makes him, there's also something about it that feels as natural as breathing, and it makes him wonder how he managed quite this long in life without coming up for air.

His arms instantly move to her waist, but he makes sure to keep his hands on the outside of her T-shirt. He knows it's a  _very_  slippery slope if he lets his hands wander, and while he's definitely not opposed to repeating last night at some point (and at many,  _many_  points after that), he's perfectly content keeping this right where it is now.

"So," Lily says, in between kisses, "Black's cabin? What time do we leave?"

He pulls back, just far enough to properly look her in the eye. "You sure? You really don't have to come if you don't want to."

Her emerald eyes bear a level of intensity that he's really only seen when she's working on a particularly important case at the precinct. "I want to."

He can't help but grin. "I'll text Sirius for the details."

And while he'd love to go back to kissing her again, Godric picks that exact moment to jump up on the couch and nestle himself directly in the newly-created gap between the two of them.

 

* * *

 

Remus and Sirius come by with their car to pick up James a few hours later. After breakfast, Lily had gone home to pack an overnight bag, and it's probably for the best that they're not both getting picked up from James' apartment, anyways.

Sirius would no doubt have a  _lot_ to say about that one.

"I have to say," James says, as he gets into the backseat of the car, "I'm going to fully support any and all wine drinking between the two of you if it means I get a free weekend trip out of it."

"This is  _not_ going to become a regular occurrence," Remus replies, shifting the car into drive. "Our bank account can't handle this kind of nonsense."

"Don't act like you're not as excited about this trip as the rest of us, Moony," Sirius replies, clearly amused.

"Oh, I am," Remus answers. "But it'll lose its novelty if it becomes an everytime-we-drink thing."

Sirius clears his throat, and changes the subject entirely. "Am I allowed to ask for a bet update?"

"You're allowed to ask," James replies, "but that doesn't mean you're getting an answer."

" _Ugh_ ," Sirius groans, loudly and dramatically. "You're no fun."

"I mean, I don't know what you want me to tell you," James says, even though he knows of at least a couple details that would definitely serve as useful benchmarks for Sirius. "We're 'light and breezy,' as Evans called it."

Remus snorts at that. "Evans is literally everything  _but_ 'light and breezy.' "

"That's what I said!"

The drive over to Lily's place doesn't take long at all, and, ever prompt, she comes out the front door of her building almost immediately after they pull up. She's traded last night's jeans and his shirt - what she'd gone home in - for a pair of black leggings and a tank top with a flannel tied around her waist.

After she throws her bag into the trunk, she gets into the backseat, grinning broadly. "Morning, boys," she says. James doesn't miss the way she looks at him for just a little bit longer than the other two, as if they're both in on some sort of shared secret.

And he supposes, in a way, maybe they are. While James may not have lied to Sirius or Remus about the extent of their relationship (or… whatever it is they're calling it), there are certainly a number of key details that they don't know about.

Of course, James supposes they won't be in the dark for too long, if he keeps up with looking at her with excessively dopey heart eyes like he's pretty sure he's doing right now.

Her hand reaches over to his and gives it a squeeze, before she looks back at the two boys in the front. "Thanks for inviting me, by the way."

"The pleasure is all James'," Sirius replies, and James can see his knowing smirk in the rearview mirror.

They start driving again, and it's slow going until they get out of the city, but as soon as they're on the freeway, the speed of traffic picks up significantly.

Their road trip soundtrack is a complete mess - as are all their attempts at collaborative Spotify playlists - alternating between Sirius' seventies rock, Remus' musical numbers, and James' contribution of the entire  _1989_ album. It soon becomes a game for Lily, guessing which of the three boys was responsible for which song.

She's almost 100% accurate, which really shouldn't be surprising to any of them.

As the drive stretches into hours, the conversation slowly starts to dwindle; soon, it's just the music playing between them, and before long, Lily looks like she's about to fall asleep, moving around in her seat a little as she attempts to find a comfortable position.

"I've been told I make a good pillow," James comments, even though no one in his life has ever once said anything of the sort to him.

He half expects Sirius to call him out on that, but the other man is fast asleep in the passenger seat, and therefore didn't even hear the comment to begin with.

But Lily doesn't seem to question him, and simply undoes her seatbelt, moves to the middle seat, does it back up again (because of  _course_ she'd never once think about riding without a seatbelt), and curls up against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He starts to get tired too, not long after. It was really only a matter of time, anyways; he's still a bit sleep-deprived from staying up late on Thursday night to make his tornado of an apartment presentable for Lily, and waking up early with her this morning didn't do much to help things either.

So he leans his head against hers, and the last thing he remembers doing before falling asleep is resting his hand atop the one of hers that's currently resting on his thigh.

When he wakes up, his line of sight is a totally different one from when he first fell asleep, and it takes him a moment to realise that his head is now in Lily's lap. She's talking to Remus about something, maybe a book that they've both read? James doesn't have enough context to tell, but their conversation comes to a halt as he sits up.

"Sleep well?" Lily asks him.

"Mm," is the only noise that comes out of his mouth, as he straightens out his glasses, which have managed to go completely lopsided while he slept.

"We're only about ten minutes away, so that was pretty impressive timing," Remus adds.

"Oh, wow." James is still only halfway awake, and therefore only half capable of forming sentences. He turns to Lily. "How long did you - ?"

"Only about an hour or so," she answers. "And as soon as I moved my head off of you, you immediately responded by laying down on top of me."

That sounds  _exactly_ like something his sleep brain would do.

"Also, you've got - " She gestures vaguely to the top of his head, which he takes to mean that his already out-of-control hair has managed to stick up in an ever weirder way than normal.

He runs a hand through his hair, hoping that's enough to get it back under control again - although he knows from experience that it takes a hell of a lot more effort than just some finger-combing to get his hair to cooperate in any way, shape, or form.

Lily confirms it. "That didn't do anything," she tells him, amused.

"Yeah, well, my hair doesn't like listening to directions, so…"

"Hmm, I wonder where it gets  _that_ trait from," she muses.

He would actually argue that, when it matters, he's  _very_ good at taking direction. "Technically, my hair is entirely a result of genetics rather than personality traits, so the blame for this one falls entirely on my parents, not my tendency to view rules as suggestions, which I know is where you were going with that one."

She looks mock-affronted. "You can't just  _predict_ my lines - that's not how this works."

"On the contrary," he retorts, running his fingers through his stubborn hair one more time, "it means  _you_  need to get more creative with your lines."

"Oh god, Remus, they're worse than we were," Sirius says dramatically - James didn't even know he was awake yet. "Look what you're going to have to put up with all night."

It's too good to pass up. "Look what you're going to have to put up with all night - title of your sex tape."

Lily snickers at that, and James feels a rush of pride. He doesn't usually get a laugh out of her on those lines.

Remus turns the car up a gravel driveway, and they head up the sloping path until a cabin comes into view. True to Sirius' texts, it's a pretty big one, set on the edge of a hill overlooking a massive forest. He can see why this would be the type of place you book when you're scrolling through Airbnb after a bottle of wine.

Not that scrolling through Airbnb is a thing  _he_  does when he's been drinking - he's much more of the type to attempt drunk Super Smash Bros or watch terrible rom-coms on Netflix than to scroll through houses, but… the appeal is understandable.

The inside of the house is just as artfully rustic as the exterior - it's one of those places that's filled with furnishings designed to make you feel like you're roughing it in a 'real' log cabin, but in reality everything was probably bought at some inexplicably expensive suburban furniture store.

James, instantly curious, starts peeking into rooms, not even bothering to set his duffel bag down. The first door he opens leads to an expansive bedroom with an attached balcony, adorned with the same flannel blankets as the living room, with a quote decal about love above the bed that even James, who's the absolute king of cheesiness, can admit is a little kitschy.

"Think this is the master bedroom, Pads," James calls out to Sirius, who's doing the exact same thing as him and looking behind one of the other doors.

"Holy fuck, this is  _too_ perfect," he says, laughing and ignoring James' comment entirely.

"What is?"

Sirius turns back to face James, a wicked smirk on his face. "See for yourself,  _Prongs_."

The unnecessary emphasis on his nickname is oddly unsettling, so James doesn't entirely know what to expect when he looks into the room Sirius is standing in front of.

It doesn't take him long to figure out though. Sirius has managed to find the other bedroom, and above this bed is yet another kitschy decal.

Except this time, it's the silhouettes of a stag and doe.

Sirius starts laughing hysterically. "I swear, neither Moony or I even  _saw_ that when we booked this, but damn, that's fucking incredible."

Lily picks that exact moment to walk into the cabin, her bag hitched up on her shoulder. "What's so funny?" she asks, taking in the fact that Sirius is practically doubled over.

"He's just massively entertained by the deer silhouettes in our room," James replies, because Sirius clearly isn't coherent enough to answer.

Lily cocks her head at that. "I thought Prongs was a reference to the fork thing?"

"Well, yes," Remus says, having entered the cabin just after Lily. "But it also works as a nod to the fact that James dressed up as a reindeer for Halloween every year through college just for the sake of making deer puns at everyone for the entire night."

"Deer puns?" She looks at him, clearly confused as to what that entails.

So he just nods solemnly. "The possibilities are  _stag_ gering."

" _Fuck no,_ not again," Remus replies, clearly exasperated with his 'awful' puns.

"I think you mean…  _buck_  no."

"Beyond James' abysmal sense of humour, I think you might have another problem here," Sirius interjects, although the devious look on his face suggests that this is, in fact, not something he considers a problem at all. "There's only one bed in here."

James has to fight off the urge to laugh, because Sirius  _clearly_ thinks he's creating drama and is going to get one or both of them flustered with this news.

"I mean, I suppose one of you could sleep on the couch or something, if you're not -"

He starts to tell Sirius that it won't really be a problem, but Lily beats him to the punch. "We've already fucked, I think we can handle sharing a bed."

It's a little bolder than what James would've opted for, but  _fucking hell_  is it 100% worth it for the look on Sirius' face. His mouth falls wide open as he looks back and forth between the two of them in quick succession. "You, and you…  _what_?"

Lily, for her part, is surprisingly nonchalant given the bomb she just dropped, and walks between James and Sirius to put her bag down in their room. As she walks by James, she does this coy little wink that makes his heart do all sorts of weird flip-flopping things in his chest.

He eventually looks back over at Sirius, who still looks positively gobsmacked. In truth, that's still kind of how James feels about this whole situation in his head, but he's getting better about faking at least a little bit of chill. So he just shrugs at his friend, with a  _'what can you do?'_ sort of smirk on his face, before following her into their bedroom.

He automatically closes the door behind him as he does so - which is kind of funny when he thinks about it, because it means he essentially just shut the door in Sirius' face.

Lily's got her bag set on the bed and she's poking through it, and James can't help but say the very first thing that comes to mind. "That was nothing short of incredible."

"Honestly, the look on Sirius' face is something I'll treasure for the rest of my life," Lily says with a laugh. "Although really, I'm a bit surprised you hadn't already told him. I was bracing myself for an inappropriate comment as soon as I got in the car today."

James shrugs. "Eh, I figured I'd save you that embarrassment."

Really, he retained that information to save  _himself_ from embarrassment more than anything, because heaven knows Sirius would've had a fucking heyday making jokes at James' expense for no other reason than that he  _knows_ James is guaranteed to get flustered about anything involving Lily.

"Well, I've subjected myself to that embarrassment now, I suppose," she hums. "Although I don't really know what exactly I'd be embarrassed about. Unless Sirius is one of those people who likes to shame people for having sex on the first - or second, I guess - date, and in that case, he can fuck right off."

James instantly feels the need to defend his friend. "No, it wouldn't be like that."

"Then I doubt a couple of dumb jokes would've  _actually_ embarrassed me."

It's kind of amazing that she can manage to be entirely unflustered about things like this. She's not completely unflappable - James has seen her  _very_ flustered when it comes to work-related things - but he admires her confidence in the exact sorts of things that he himself has not yet figured out how to navigate without wanting to sink into the floor.

He's trying to work out how to say some iteration of that out loud in a way that doesn't sound extremely weird, but she changes the subject before he gets there. "So, what exactly are we  _doing_ now that we're up here in some cabin in the middle of nowhere?"

That is… a very good question, and one that James absolutely doesn't know the answer to. So he walks back over to the door and pulls it open. Sirius is no longer standing in front of their doorway - he's presumably gone into the master bedroom - but Remus is currently scoping out the kitchen.

"Hey Moony, what are we doing now?"

"I was thinking we'd go for a hike?" Remus replies. "And then go on a food run after that? Unless you two are eager to break in your  _one bed_." That last remark is accompanied by a smirk.

Truly, sometimes James forgets that Remus can be just as bad as his fiancé on occasion.

"A hike sounds nice," James replies, choosing to take the high road and ignore the jab entirely. Or, on second thought… "We've got all night to break in our  _one bed_."

Remus just rolls his eyes, likely accepting that he's not going to be able to embarrass James anymore with this one. "Great, I'll let Sirius know that's the plan then," he replies, before quickly clarifying, "The hike part, that is."

Approximately half an hour later, they're all in clothes that are at least vaguely appropriate for hiking - James' Chacos are  _fine_ , he's insisted multiple times, it's not like they're scaling Everest or anything like that - and leaving the cabin.

They're really situated quite perfectly - there's a trail that starts just up the street from them, and it's a pretty scenic walk from the very start.

Somehow, James falls into step with Sirius, while Lily and Remus linger a good bit behind them.

"This is now  _two_ important bet updates you've failed to give me," Sirius comments, just loud enough that only James can hear him.

James looks at him, confused. "What was the other one?"

"You two kissing on your first date," Sirius answers. "I had to find  _that_ one out from the guilty looks on both of your faces the next day."

He shrugs, not really sure why it's any of Sirius's business anyways. "I just… you wouldn't care about any of that shit if it weren't for this stupid bet, anyways."

Sirius scoffs at that. "Are you kidding me? Yes, I was pretty sick of hearing you pine over her for the past couple of years, but actually getting together with her? I absolutely fucking care about that."

"We're not… we're not  _together_  though," he reasons. "Neither of us have really talked about what it is that we're doing here, and you know as well as I do that sex doesn't necessarily mean there's a relationship there."

It's the first time he's voiced this particular insecurity aloud, and maybe it's unwise to do so with the person he's got a bet against, but right now it feels like Sirius has fallen much more into best-friend mode rather than bet-competitor mode, so James doesn't really think twice about it.

"I mean, yeah, you're not wrong there," Sirius says, shrugging. "But for what it's worth, there's been more than one moment today where she's been looking at you with the same fucking doe eyes you've been making at her for heaven knows how long - which makes me really doubt that was 'just sex' for her."

James feels hope bubble in his chest - it doesn't completely outweigh his nervousness about the tenacity of their current situation, but it helps that someone  _else_ is confirming that she seems to… well, actually like him.

"Which is a major fucking disappointment on my end," Sirius adds. "Given, you know - "

He doesn't get to finish that sentence - which would've presumably been a reference to what's at stake in their bet - because Lily and Remus apparently choose that exact moment to run and catch up with them, something that's foretold by feet pounding on the dirt trail behind them.

"Would be nice if you waited up," Lily jokes, sidling up to James with a sassy sort of smile on her face.

"Your fault for walking slow."

It's a bit awkward now - four of them trying to walk all in one line on a trail that's really only meant to be two people wide at most - so James slows down just a little, letting Remus and Sirius take the lead.

"I must say," Lily comments, looking around them, "I'm a big fan of Remus and Sirius' drunken mistakes. When I drink too much, I just get louder and turn everything into a competition - I don't accidentally book weekend getaways in the mountains."

"You and me both, Evans," he replies, thinking back to a moment not too long ago where drinking had, in fact, made him loud and competitive, and had gotten him tied up in a bet that he's still not really sure what to do with.

"You know, I'm not sure if we've ever been drunk together, now that I think about it."

James immediately thinks back on numerous department outings to a bar up the street from the precinct. "Are you not counting any of the times the squad has gone out for drinks?"

"I've seen you drunk, yes," she says with a nod. "But I've never had more than two drinks at any of those - I'd  _never_  risk making a fool of myself in front of Dumbledore and Shacklebolt."

He raises his eyebrows at her. "And three drinks is somehow the threshold into making a fool of yourself?"

"Three-Drink Lily laughs at literally everything, so yes," she answers primly, and the certainty with which she delivers that line throws him off for a second.

"You... you've given yourself drinking personalities?"

She hums. "Not so much as I've given them to myself as it's been revealed that I follow a very predictable pattern directly proportional to the volume of alcohol I've consumed."

He can't help but laugh at that, because  _god_ , everything about that is just  _so_ Lily. "Only you, Evans. Only you."

There's a beat of silence between them, but James quickly finds a way to fill it. "You know what this means, right?"

She looks over at him, eyebrows ever-so-slightly scrunched together in a way that James really shouldn't find all that endearing but does anyways. "No… what?"

"You and I are getting drunk together," he replies resolutely. "I need to experience the Lily drunkenness scale firsthand."

"Tonight?"

He gestures to the trees and rocks around them. "I mean, we're in the middle of nowhere with absolutely zero cell reception - what else are we going to do for an evening other than drink?"

She seems to consider that for a second. "I'm game."

"Great," he replies. "A grocery trip is already in the cards anyways - we'll just make an alcohol run while we're at it. Drink of choice?"

"Whiskey Diet Coke," she answers immediately.

"I think we can make that happen, even if Diet Coke  _is_ a garbage mixer," he says with a grin, and looks between them to realise that, somehow, their hands are intertwined.

 _He_ doesn't remember doing that. Although, he also doesn't even remember  _her_ grabbing his hand either, and he's always got such a constant radar on what she's doing that he doesn't know how he would've missed that either.

But despite having no clue what the origin of it was, he's not upset about it, and he's  _certainly_ not going to pull his hand away.

"Well that's a garbage opinion," Lily retorts, too caught up in bantering with him to notice where his eyes have dropped to. "What else would you mix whiskey with?"

"Regular Coke, like god intended." He looks up at her face again, wearing a challenging expression. "Diet Coke tastes like chemicals."

"Regular Coke tastes like chemicals  _and_ too much sugar, that's  _worse._ "

He shrugs, which is a bit awkward because he doesn't want to disturb their entwined hands (lest she pull hers away) so it ends up being more of a one-shouldered thing. "Agree to disagree, I suppose," he hums. "More of the good stuff for me."

"If the two of you would quit arguing about soda, you might actually notice the view," Sirius' voice rings out from ahead of them, and James looks up at the scenery and away from Lily.

Sirius is right - it's pretty damn stunning. The trees have thinned out, and they're high enough that they can see for miles. There's an outline of more mountains in the distance, backlit by the afternoon sun, and the valleys below them are filled with greenery.

They walk to the edge of the path, stopping to admire everything for a little while longer. James has a sudden urge to move even closer to Lily while they're standing here, and for once, he lets himself do it without questioning it too much. He takes a half step behind her, wrapping his arms around her so that her back is against his chest.

She tenses up for half a second, but he doesn't even have enough time to panic about that, because she immediately relaxes into him, leaning her head back against his chest.

"Kinda makes you wonder why on earth we'd want to live in a city, doesn't it?" she says, almost  
wistfully.

James hums at that. "I suppose," he muses. "Although I've never lived anywhere other than a city, so..."

"Ah, right, your parents have some fancy place on the Upper East Side, don't they?" She leans her head back just the tiniest bit further to look up at him.

"Er, yeah," he answers, a bit surprised that she knows that. He and Sirius have definitely mentioned going to his parents' place on numerous occasions at the precinct, but he wouldn't have expected her to remember that. "They've had that place since before I was born, so it's… it's all I've known."

Lily sighs, and it's almost a laugh. "Small towns are… nice, in a way. Granted, I couldn't wait to get out of the one I grew up in, but… still. It's fun to romanticize them sometimes."

"Do you ever regret it? Leaving, I mean?" James is distantly aware that Remus and Sirius have already started walking onwards, but he figures they can catch up later.

"Not in the slightest," Lily answers resolutely. "I would've been  _miserable_ there."

She says it so emphatically that he's sure there's got to be some deeper backstory, but before he gets the chance to ask about it, she's spinning around in his arms and pulling his grip loose.

"Come on," she grins at him, tone completely different now, "we should catch up with Black and Lupin before they start giving us shit again."

He still has so many questions he wants to ask, but instead he lets her take his hand again and half-jogs with her to catch up with his friends.

 

* * *

 

True to his promise, it's not long after they've all finished dinner that James pulls out whiskey and both Coke  _and_ Diet Coke for the evening, pouring drinks for both himself and Lily. Sirius and Remus, on the other hand, decide to split a bottle of wine for the second night in a row, largely on account of the fact that there's no cell service or WiFi out here, so it's impossible for them to drunkenly book  _another_ weekend cabin trip while wine-drunk.

They start with a deck of cards, playing Bullshit until it becomes obvious that the game will kill Remus exclusively, because the rest of them are pretty convincing liars and Remus is hopeless. So then they switch to Suicide, which is a million times worse and means that they're refilling their glasses almost constantly.

"What point on your drunkenness scale are we on right now?" James asks, grinning over at Lily cheekily as she pours Diet Coke into her cup.

"That was Four-Drink Lily, and she's loud and has no filter," she tells him, louder than necessary in the otherwise quiet house. "This," she waves her freshly mixed glass around, "is going to be Five-Drink Lily, who is competitive as hell."

She says it in complete seriousness, and James can't help but laugh. "You mean to say sober Lily  _isn't_ competitive as hell?"

She just grins at him. "Just you wait."

Sure enough, her drink is about half full when she attempts to challenge Sirius to a wrestling match, and Sirius, being equally as drunk, accepts the challenge. It's only when Remus delicately points out to Sirius the flaws in this potential plan that he backs down from Lily's challenge.

Six-Drink Lily likes to dance, James soon learns. She turns their road trip playlist back on, swaying around the living room and moving with absolutely zero grace. And even though it shouldn't be, James finds it incredibly endearing.

"James!" she spins to face him, beaming. "Dance with me!"

It's such a wild contrast to the person he's so used to seeing in the precinct every day, the Lily who's so perfectly put-together and serious. Neither is worse than the other, per say, but it's just...  _different_. Unexpected.

Nonetheless, he gets up to 'dance' with her, although it's mostly her just holding onto his hands while she does her own moves - occasionally she'll throw a little spin in there as well.

At some point during all of this, Remus and Sirius have snuck off into their own bedroom, so it's just him and Lily in the room when the song changes. James recognizes the soft chords immediately - it's one of his own contributions to the road trip playlist, after all - but he's not entirely sure how Lily will react to the sudden change of pace.

She takes the slower tempo in stride, taking a step towards James and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Alright, now you're required to  _actually_ dance with me."

And so he does just that, wrapping his arms around her waist and moving in time with her. Neither of them are even remotely sober, so it's far from a perfect slow dance, but they find a rhythm well enough.

Once James is confident enough that he's not going to accidentally trip or step on her toes, he starts paying attention to the actual song again, and more importantly, looking at Lily.

She's watching him with a soft drunken smile on her face, and the lyrics of the song are all about mornings at his place and kisses on sidewalks and  _love_  and it's all a little too close to home and -

Oh god.

Oh  _god_.

It's definitely not the first time today that he's felt something like this, but it  _is_  the first time that it's actually scared him.

There's nothing to distract him from the truth of the matter this time. He's falling in love with her, and  _hard_. Harder than he has any right to be falling for someone after only a few days of… whatever it is they're doing, long-term crush notwithstanding. Something in his chest tightens, making it that much harder to breathe, and he suddenly feels like his skin is on fire, and not in a good way.

His arms drop from around her waist and he takes a jerky step back, bringing their dancing to an abrupt halt. One of his hands immediately reaches up to nervously run through his hair, and he immediately wants to look anywhere but at Lily. It's no use though, because he can practically envision the confused expression on her pretty features as she asks, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, excellent," he lies. "I just… need some fresh air. Yeah."

He doesn't wait for her to respond, just walks around her to the sliding glass doors and pushes one open. There's a noticeable temperature drop when he steps outside, but it does little to fix the actual problem.

He can't keep doing this - not knowing where they stand or what they even are. Not when he's feeling like this. And under any other circumstances, four days would probably be way too soon for the 'what are we' question - any honestly, even in these circumstances, maybe it's still too soon - but this is Lily.

And bet or not, he needs to know what's happening between them before he gets himself in any deeper.

But fuck, is he already in deep.


	6. low key in love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feeling things that I shouldn't,  
> I'm saying things that I shouldn't,  
> I think I let you get too close  
> -Jaira Burns

* * *

DAY FIVE

* * *

 

When Lily wakes up with her body fully intertwined with James', she goes through two levels of surprise about it. The first is because waking up to him is just an unfamiliar thing in general - five days ago, they were nothing but coworkers, so waking up in bed with him two days in a row qualifies as a pretty dramatic shift from the norm.

The second is because of what happened last night. Six-Drink Lily is a dancer by nature, so she could've predicted that after six drinks she'd be dragging James up to dance with her; what she couldn't have predicted, however, was his reaction to it. They'd been having such a nice time dancing - or at least,  _she'd_ thought they were having a nice time - when all of a sudden… James wanted nothing to do with her. He went out to the balcony alone while Six-Drink Lily rapidly sobered into something more akin to Two-Drink Lily, and when he'd come back, he was different.

Not  _cold_ , per say, but certainly colder. They'd both retired to the bedroom, and when they'd both crawled into bed, he'd deliberately stayed on his own side, rolling over onto his side to face away from her. Clearly they'd shifted in their sleep, but they hadn't even been touching when they first fell asleep.

So much for 'taking advantage of the one bed.'

Of all the things Lily imagined might've pushed James away from her, a drunken proclivity for dancing wasn't it. Although, she supposes, it  _is_ a distinct departure from the perfectly-put-together Lily he usually sees at work. And maybe he  _does_  only like that part of her, so she supposes it could fit into her theory, in a way.

And if that's the case… well damn, he should've gotten to see Seven-Drink Lily. That would've had him swearing off her completely, she bets.

She doesn't get any more time to think on that, because James rouses next to her, humming softly as the arm wrapped around her waist tightens.

If she'd been hoping to get out of this position before he woke up, it's a lost cause now.

Will he regret it - this position they're in - when he does? Will he push her away again, like he did last night?

She knows that's what she's meant to be hoping for - it would mean she's actually been right about him all along - but it still hurts a little to think about. Almost more than her head already hurts from all the whiskey last night.

Instead of waiting to see how he reacts upon waking, Lily decides that the smarter option is just to pretend she hadn't woken up at all. So she closes her eyes again, trying her best to keep her breathing slow and level even as her heart beats much faster in her chest.

It's an agonising few seconds while she waits to see if he wakes up or not - and sure enough, she gets an acknowledgement that he has in fact fully woken up just a few seconds later, in the form of a soft laugh and a, "Of fucking course."

Which she's got… absolutely no clue what to make of, because that's a statement that has a whole host of potential connotations, both good  _and_ bad.

But he doesn't move away or let go of her, which is hopefully a good sign? Although she supposes even  _that_  is subjective, because what she's instinctively considering 'good' and 'bad' take on totally opposite forms when the bet is accounted for.

Fuck, she  _hates_  that she's so invested in overthinking everything right now. The minor hangover is a nuisance enough without having to parse out all of her incredibly complicated feelings.

There's no way she's actually going to be able to fall asleep again, so she figures the ruse is up - she slowly opens her eyes, doing her best to pretend like this is the first time she's doing so.

When she looks at James, his eyes immediately snap to hers. "Good morning," she greets, surprised when her voice comes out much scratchier than intended.

"Morning," he returns with a smirk. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," she answers, and before she can stop herself, adds, "Look, I'm sorry if I… I don't know, made you uncomfortable last night? Or - "

He cuts her off before she can figure out how to end that sentence. "You didn't do anything. I just," he pauses for a moment, looking like he's wracking his brain for how to phrase things, "needed a moment to think."

"... Oh." She still feels like there's something he's not telling her.

Before she even gets a chance to decide whether or not it's worth it to prod any further, there's a knock on the door. "You up?"

"Is that supposed to be a booty call?" James retorts, before looking at Lily with a smirk. "Because while I'm flattered, I don't think your fiancé would approve."

Lily can practically  _hear_ Remus' eye roll. "Do you want breakfast? Sirius is making eggs and pancakes."

James raises his eyebrows at her, as if checking for her response. "Yeah, we'll be out in a minute," she answers, removing herself from his grip and starting to get out of bed.

It's for the best, putting a little distance between them right now, because him looking at her like that - like they're sharing some private joke or moment - is making her want to do something stupid, like start kissing him again.

And what if he pushes her away this time? It's a rejection she's expecting to happen at some point anyways, but delaying the inevitable seems like a better option right now. At least, delaying it until she's had a little space from him and can finally get her head back on straight.

She can see James looking at her, and it's only when she starts putting a sweatshirt on over her pajamas that he finally seems to snap out of it and get out of bed as well.

Outside their bedroom, Sirius is indeed hard at work in the kitchen, and there's a telltale sizzle as he pours pancake batter onto a greased pan. Lily goes about making herself a cup of tea - there's no kettle here, so she'll have to stoop so low as to stick her mug in the microwave to make it - and James follows right after her to pour himself a cup of coffee.

Sirius has some grungy 90's punk music playing, and it's a bit of a hilarious contrast to the otherwise soothing environment of a lazy morning in a cabin in the woods.

Breakfast is nice - Sirius seems to have finally run out of innuendos, at least for the time being, so the entire meal is just a lot of friendly chatter. Remus tells Lily about the time he accidentally drank his goldfish, and she laughs so hard she almost snorts tea out of her nose.

"I was hungover and half asleep!" he defends, although it's a lost cause at this point. "I suppose the real mistake was keeping a pet in a drinking glass to begin with."

"That poor fish," Lily replies sympathetically, although the effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that she's still smiling.

"Somehow,  _I'm_ the only one of us who's ever managed to keep a pet alive," James grins. "Which is really terrifying when you think about it - the idea that  _I'm_ the most responsible one."

"Positively chilling," Lily agrees, before reaching over with her fork and stealing a bite of pancake off of James' plate. He's been too occupied with talking to finish his food anyways, and she doesn't want to bother with getting a whole new pancake.

James doesn't notice until she's already got the fork in her mouth. "Evans!" he yelps, clasping his hand over his heart like he's been personally affronted. "I can't believe you - resorting to petty theft!"

She can't help but roll her eyes at his dramatics, swallowing the stolen bite of pancake before answering, "Only when it comes to breakfast food."

"That's an awfully slippery slope, morally," he retorts. "First it's just breakfast food, then it's lunch, and next thing you know, you're running off with the whole damn dinner roast."

He looks so serious as he says it, so committed to the bit, that Lily can't help but laugh, even as she shakes her head at him.

"Fuck, you two are  _actually_ an old married couple," Sirius chimes in, and Lily almost jumps when she remembers that it's not actually just the two of them.

She opens her mouth to respond - hoping that some sort of retort is on the tip of her tongue - but she's cut off by James standing up abruptly. When she looks up at him, his expression is unreadable.

"I should go pack," he says, and it's stiff and awkward-sounding and not at all like his normal voice.

There's also the fact that he never actually unpacked his stuff to begin with, so Lily's pretty sure that he's got nothing to actually pack.

"Prongs," Remus says, in an attempt to get James to turn back around. It doesn't work, and James goes into their bedroom and closes the door behind him.

Lily turns to face Sirius and Remus, hoping for some sort of answer from them about what just happened, but they look just as clueless as she is.

And somehow, she knows that she's the one that needs to go talk to him. Somehow, this is about her.

"I'm going to go - " she addresses the other two, gesturing her head in the direction of the door in lieu of finishing her sentence. They both nod.

When she walks into the bedroom, as predicted, James is staring at an already-packed duffel bag. She shuts the door behind her and leans against the doorframe, trying to give off slightly more confidence than she actually feels right now.

"Want to tell me what's bothering you?"

He jumps at the sound of her voice, even though he  _had_ to have heard her come in. One of his hands immediately goes up to run through his hair, making it stick up at a strange angle that somehow still looks good on him.

"Shit, I - fuck, I - " he trails off again after that, clearly at a complete loss for words. Then he sighs loudly, before answering, "It's you."

Lily feels something heavy settle in her stomach like lead - dread or fear or anxiety or some combination of the three.

He's about to say he's done with her, she can feel it.

Is this… is this what her bet is about to come to? Five days and far more emotional attachment on her end than she'd ever possibly anticipated?

"Me?" Her voice sounds so much smaller and more vulnerable than she'd meant for it to - it honestly almost sounds like she's about to cry.

James suddenly looks at her, wide-eyed. "Oh,  _fuck_ , not like - I could've phrased that  _so_ much better, I just - "

He takes a deep breath, then tries again. "All of this is just fucking with my head. What are we doing here?"

Lily has no idea what he's talking about, and she's still trying to make sense of her own emotions, so she just goes with a, "What do you mean?"

"I'm normally fine with a little chaos and uncertainty - hell, I  _thrive_ init," he begins. "But… not with this." And then softer, "Not with you."

She feels like his eyes are burning a hole through her, like the weight of his gaze is going to swallow her whole. And what's worse is that she can't stop herself from matching his intensity, from looking right back into his eyes and letting herself get lost in them.

"Is this - are we together? I know it'd normally be way too early to be talking about this or trying to define anything, but  _none_ of this feels normal, and - "

"Yes," Lily answers immediately, her mouth moving entirely independently of her brain. "I think we are. At least, I'd like it if we are."

Now James is the one who's suddenly speechless - Lily bets he wasn't expecting her to have an answer that quickly, to require so little persuasion before saying 'yes.' Hell,  _she_ wasn't expecting herself to have an answer that quickly.

But then he smiles at her, and it's so genuine and happy that she feels the weight in her gut dissolve into warmth, and she can't even overthink about her panicked response just yet or the implications that it comes with.

She finds herself walking across the room to stand in front of him without ever consciously making the decision to do so - she can now add her legs to the list of body parts that are acting without any prior instruction from her brain, it seems - and when she does, she loops her arms around his neck and looks up at him.

"I'd like it too," he says, looking at her with just as much intensity as before, but under entirely different circumstances.

He leans down and kisses her, and it sends warmth all the way down to her toes. And then he slides one hand under her shirt while the other grabs her ass, and that subtle warmth in her veins is suddenly  _boiling hot_. She's so immensely caught up in it, so fully immersed in the feeling, that she barely notices when they both fall back onto the bed, a mess of wandering hands and burning touches.

James starts to kiss down her neck as she hooks a leg around him and presses her hips fully against his, and the mix of all the sensations - his lips, his hands, his proximity - means that she can't control the moan that comes out as his teeth graze her pulse point.

Her logical side reminds her that she probably shouldn't have done any of this - shouldn't have said 'yes' to him when he asked if they were dating, shouldn't be jumping into bed with him like this now - but she can't help but lose a little control with him.

She's only just slid her hands underneath the fabric of his T-shirt when -

"These walls aren't as soundproof as you think they are!"

They jump apart at that, both wide-eyed as they look at each other and then the door, and then all of a sudden the mood has shifted completely and they're both laughing hysterically.

"Fuck off, Padfoot," James yells at the door, before turning back to Lily, still laughing as he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her close to him again.

 

* * *

 

Lily feels like she's in some sort of bubble for the rest of the morning, where nothing really matters except her apparently-now-boyfriend and the weird little skip-jump her heart does every time she thinks of him as that. But as with all bubbles, it's only a matter of time until it bursts.

What ultimately ends up popping said perfect bubble is the simultaneous dinging of everyone's phones as they start to drive home, and finally find themselves back in an area with consistent cell service.

Lily looks at her phone, lit up with a mess of random notifications, and immediately notices the text from Mary. Even without reading the message itself, she feels her stomach drop a little bit, because  _fuck_ she'd completely let the bet slip from her mind over the past few hours. She'd just been fully occupied with James, who's been lovely and nothing like she'd anticipated when she made this wager on Tuesday, and…

 

_five days in… potter still sticking around? ;)_

 

He has… more than stuck around, but Lily can't bear to give Mary an update that so clearly illuminates  _just_ how far off-track Lily's course of action has gone.

 

_I hear Peter's gouda has gotten better since last time, you'll have to let me know._

_Everything is going exactly how I expected it to._

 

Which is the lie of the fucking century, she thinks to herself after she hits send.

But instead of dwelling on it or waiting to see how Mary responds, Lily flips to a totally different contact and starts typing furiously, making sure that her phone screen is visible to no one in the car but herself.

 

_S O fucking S_

_I have a major problem_

 

The little three dots pop up on Marlene's end immediately, and Lily thanks her lucky stars that her friend is so on top of her text messages.

 

_i'm ready_

_give me all the drama_

_So you know how I was going to Potter's on Friday night, yeah?_

_yesssss_

_Well, um, I… may or may not have slept with him._

_asdfhalohgagafh_

_LILY EVANS YOU MINX_

_how was it?_

_I can't believe you're asking me that._

_Didn't you once tell me having to hear straight people talk about having sex was the on the list of top five worst forms of torture you could imagine?_

_yes under normal circumstances_

_but this is YOU and POTTER_

_i am HIGHLY INVESTED in this shit_

_Ugh, fine._

_It was incredible._

_Like, quite-possibly-best-sex-of-my-life incredible._

_oh my god_

_wait_

_so what's the problem then?_

_it made you realise you want to keep hooking up with him after the bet ends?_

_Worse._

_It made me realise that I miiiiiiiight have feelings for him._

_a;jfhaghalfga;fh_

_And then we went to the mountains with Black and Lupin and I've spent so much time with him this weekend and now I DEFINITELY have feelings for him._

_ASDHFA;OIGHALDSGAHRL_

_holy fuck_

_i can't believe it_

_Do you see my problem now?_

_i see no problem with any of this_

_..._

_Marlene._

_ok ok fine, i see how all of this can be a little complicated_

_A "LITTLE" complicated?_

_Marls_

_I have a major crush on a boy who's going to dump me in five days._

_And I'm ~supposed~ to be making him WANT to dump me._

_That is MASSIVELY fucking complicated._

_ok first of all, james is not going to dump you in five days_

_i understand that you have a lot riding on this - namely peter's weird ass cheese platter and your dignity_

_and i understand that i'm meant to be neutral on this whole bet between you and mary_

_but honey_

_that boy is SO GONE on you_

_Is he though?_

_We were having a moment last night while I was at Six-Drink Lily, and then all of a sudden something changed and he wanted nothing to do with me._

_hmm yeah that's a little out-of-character for him_

_isn't 6 drink lily the overly sexual one?_

_No, that's Seven._

_Six is dancing._

_ah, she's a fun one to go clubbing with_

_But that's beside the point._

_Anyways, that happened but this morning he was acting like it never did? And then asked me if we were actually dating or what was going on between us?_

_wait omg_

_what did you say_

_I panicked and said yes?_

_HOLY FUCK_

_LILY_

_THIS IS INCREDIBLE_

_and also fucking hilarious_

_literally you were supposed to be turning potter off of you and instead you managed to fuck him, officially start dating him, and fall for him yourself_

_this is quite possibly the single biggest failure in the history of failures_

 

Were it not for the fact that she's still in a car with James, Remus, and Sirius, Lily would definitely audibly groan at Marlene's comment - because it's  _so_ true and god, it's  _so_ fucked up. But as it stands, she'd prefer for none of them to ask too many questions about who she's texting and what it's about, so she bites her tongue.

 

_You're telling me._

_But seriously, I need your help._

_Nothing I've seemed to do has actually pushed James away like I thought it would._

_because he's head over heels for you, something literally everyone but you recognizes, go on_

_Well, what do I do now?_

_accept the truth, forfeit the bet, and go fuck his brains out?_

_Marlene._

_LILY._

_I can't lose this bet._

_My goddamn pride is at stake._

_you're being ridiculous_

_Am I?_

_I don't lose._

_I just need to… I don't know, find a way to somehow win the bet but then get him back?_

_Just like, do enough that he doesn't want to be with me by Friday but not enough that he won't accept a profuse apology and give me a second chance in a few months or so._

_this… seems like a bad idea_

_also wasn't the whole point of the bet that you weren't going to go out of your way at all?_

_And I'm not going to._

_Well, not that much._

_I just need to, I don't know, get on his nerves a little?_

_i could tell you all the reasons i think this is dumb_

_but i know you_

_and i know you won't listen to me because you're stubbornly set on winning_

_so fine_

_what do you need help with?_

_What's the most annoying thing about me?_

_OTHER than the fact that you're too fucking competitive for your own good?_

_Yes other than that_

_He apparently finds that hot._

_of fucking course he does_

_i don't know_

_you get nerdy about things nobody else really cares about and won't shut up even if people are literally yawning_

_you can be SUPER intense out of nowhere_

_you set a bunch of weirdly specific rules for yourself that make no sense_

_and refuse to budge on them even when they're actually absurd_

_Wow_

_Ok calm down there._

_what else are best friends for if not keeping a comprehensive list of your character flaws?_

_I don't know, unconditional support maybe?_

_honey, i'm not going to unconditionally support your stupidity_

_I'm NOT being stupid._

_yes you are_

_but i've helped you anyways_

_you should be thanking me_

_It feels weird to thank you for telling me all the ways I suck._

_yeah, well, it also feels weird to be trying to help you lose a guy who you've just openly admitted you ACTUALLY LIKE_

_You've already pointed out that I've got a compulsive need to win everything._

_yeah, well this seems like one situation where you should give that up_

 

From the front seat, Sirius laughs. "Evans, you're literally scowling at your phone - who managed to piss you off like ten minutes into having cell service again?"

"Marlene's insulting me," she answers, because, well, it's  _not_ a lie. Although the circumstances that resulted in said insults are significantly more incriminating.

He laughs even louder this time. "Classic McKinnon."

 

_holy fuck_

_wait shit wrong number_

…  _You're definitely gossiping about me with someone, aren't you?_

_of course_

_don't worry dear, it's only dorcas_

_she lives for our office drama, her accounting firm is boring as fuck in comparison_

_That checks out, lol._

 

Marlene takes a while to get back to her after that (no doubt relaying the whole story to her wife), James is asleep against the car window, and Sirius is still tapping away on his phone screen, so she turns to Remus, starting a casual conversation about work that will hopefully take her mind off of her text message history.

She needs to think up a plan to get out of this mess in one piece, but she knows it won't happen in this car, and a distraction is the next-best solution for now.

 

* * *

 

When they get back into the city and the car parks outside her building, Lily feels something heavy settle in her stomach. After a whole car ride of convincing herself that she needs space to think logically, she finds that she actually kind of dreads leaving. She's gotten accustomed to James' fingers interlaced with her own, and feels somewhat bereft without them.

But Remus' car is parked out in front of her place and she's expected to leave now - ideally before someone else turns onto the street and starts violently honking to display their displeasure at Remus stopping in the middle of the road, because New York drivers don't exactly take kindly to pointless delays - so she unbuckles her seatbelt and addresses the two boys up front.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she tells them, before turning back to James.

At the soft look in his eyes, she's hit with yet another wave of affection for him - god, she's truly pathetic, isn't she? - and she has to fight back the urge to just grab him by the hand again, and to not let go until she's successfully dragged him all the way up to her apartment.

But she can't do that - not only because he  _does_ need to get back to his own place since they've got work tomorrow, but also because she needs a chance to get her master plan going, and she sure as hell can't seem to think properly about winning the bet with him around.

So she settles herself for a swift peck on his lips, and a soft, "Bye."

And then, before she can do anything stupid, she forces herself out of the car, taking her bag with her.

As Remus' car drives away and Lily walks up to her apartment, the air feels colder somehow. Not temperature-wise, because it's summertime and it's definitely warm outside, but she's had a constant heat source near her for the past… honestly, the past forty-eight hours, and now she's alone again.

The sudden sense of loneliness is strange, and Lily muses on it as she turns her key in the lock. She's never really been the type of person to constantly need company, and  _especially_ not from the same person. Even in most of her past relationships, even in that new-beginnings honeymoon phase, there was a strict upper limit to how much time she could spend with a guy before needing to retreat to solitude.

So what's so different this time? Why is James so contradictory to that pattern?

Lily doesn't let herself answer that question. She's quite sure she wouldn't like the result if she let herself dwell on it for too long. She's fallen too hard, too soon.

But distance is good. Without the cheeky smirks that make her heart stutter, the gentle touches on her waist and hands and cheek that make her breath catch in her throat, the sweet comments that make her melt, her mind is much clearer. Her rational brain is at the helm again, and every other part of her bows to its logic instead of going off script.

It's almost dinnertime, so she places a delivery order and starts planning out her week - both in the filling-in-her-planner sense  _and_  in the building-a-foolproof-solution-to-this-bet sense. The former ends up being much simpler than the latter.

She can't break any of Mary's rules - the terms of this bet  _were_ that James would ditch her purely for her own character flaws - but as Marlene noted, Lily has plenty of flaws that she can use to her advantage. She's a shit girlfriend - something she's been told in the past - and while she definitely wants to be a better one for James at some point, she can put that self-improvement aside for just a few more days.

By the end of the evening, she's got an empty container of shrimp fried rice and a relatively solid course of action. This is all going to go just fine - James will get annoyed with her by Wednesday, suggest a break by Friday, and then, in a few weeks, when Lily's at a new job and Mary's already had to stomach defeat  _and_ one of Peter's cheese platters, she'll show up at his door with a bottle of wine and an apology, and all will be as it should.

She just can't float by on her feelings anymore, can't let her heart override everything the moment he gets too close, not if she wants a chance at this working. Her plan is only foolproof if she can stop acting like a damn fool.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/shadowrose_hpft) and [tumblr!](http://legally-gryffindor.tumblr.com/)


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